Through Azure Eyes
by princessm1090
Summary: Musa entered Alfea thinking she would make some new friends and have some fun. Little did she know that she would be thrown into an epic battle between good and evil. Follow the musical princess through love, hate and see season one through her eyes.
1. It Feels Like Magic

_So I'm back with another story, this writing thing is like an addiction. This story is about Musa's journey through season 1. I saw that a lot of authors have done their own spin on season 1 or season 3 of the winx club, so I decided to try my hand at it. I am going to keep to the script of the show a lot, but there are some differences. But it will follow the overall series of events in season one. _

_I hope you guys like it! _

* * *

**It Feels Like Magic**

The Harmonic Nebula was known for many things, it was a hub for culture and music not to mention it was where many trends in the entertainment industry began. It's landscape was almost picturesque, with sparkling metropolises, tranquil country sides, and a constant tune in the air it seemed as if this place were perfect. The people of this area tended to be pretty talented and the crown jewel of this vast empire was the kingdom's sole heir, Princess Musa Dannington.

Musa woke around noon to the sunrays shining in her face. She smiled and squinted as she sank into the comfort of her soft bed. She sat up and noticed that her drapes were drawn and the sun was shining through the large French doors. Musa looked around the room and noticed that all her clothes, that she threw on the ground last night after getting in late, were picked up, cleaned, and pressed. She sat there and marveled at the fact that she had impeccable hearing and yet she never heard the maids come in and clean up. _I should start locking that door…_ Musa thought to herself as she got out of bed and stepped into her plush slippers.

Musa walked to her desk where there was a welcome packet for Alfea School for Fairies sitting neatly on top of a few more papers, all with the Alfea letterhead at the top. Her room was remarkably clean, probably because many of her things were packed and en route to Alfea. Musa picked up the welcome packet and walked out onto her balcony that overlooked her garden. Every room she had in every palace was overlooking a garden; it was this way because her mother wanted her to have something beautiful to look out to. Since then Musa insisted that her rooms were by a garden.

Musa flipped through the pages and looked at the school that she would be attending for the next four years as she leaned against the marble railing of the balconies. After a couple of minutes, Musa walked back into her room and went to shower. After a quick shower Musa walked out of her room and over to the dining room in the palace where she found her father sitting, reading a newspaper, waiting for her. "Hello princess," greeted her father warmly.

"Hi daddy," Musa said as she sat down next to her father.

"Darling, I know you've decided to go to Alfea," the king began after a couple of moments of silence. "But, I think we've been too hasty when making the decision; you have been so happy at Devon Prepatory, why not continue there?" Musa's father questioned hoping she would stay closer to home. She had been attending a prestigious prep school that was an hour away from the palace and even though she stayed in a dorm there as well, she was very close to home.

"Daddy, we've talked about this," Musa said firmly. A smile did paint her face, she felt bad and she knew her dad was going to miss her, but she wanted to go to Alfea. It was where her mother had gone to school and she needed to stand on her own two feet for once. She had always been sheltered by her father, by palace guards, or by the harmonic secret service, but in Magix she could be normal and she could finally see how life would be if she wasn't constantly being protected. "I'm going, but I am going to miss you,"

Her father smiled as the maid from the kitchen brought her a plate of food. "So what will you be doing today,"

"Umm… I'll be home for awhile and then Daniel is picking me up and we're going out and then dinner with everyone," Musa said as she picked at her food. She wasn't the least bit hungry; she was far too excited about going to Alfea the next day.

Musa and her father talked for another hour or so before he had to leave for a meeting with the king of Crescendo, an ally of the Harmonic Nebula and Musa happened to be dating his son, Daniel. "Darling, I will try to make if back by the morning, but if not, I will come by Magix to visit you in a week," he stated.

"Okay," Musa said a bit dejectedly. Her father was a busy man and she knew that, but it would have been nice if he had time to spend with her before she left to go to Alfea. Her father gave her a hug and kissed her on the head before leaving the palace. Musa had the whole afternoon to herself so she went out into the garden with her ipod and the same welcome packet that she flipped through that morning. Daniel, her boyfriend, would be picking her up around 5 so she could go out with him before meeting the rest of her close friends for her goodbye dinner.

Musa sat on a bench in the middle of the garden in front of a large fountain and looked through the packet over and over again. Her mother had gone to Alfea and the main reason she had decided to apply to Alfea was so that she could follow in her footsteps. She was only three when her mother passed and she would do anything to feel a connection to her. Not to mention she had fallen in love with the school when she went to visit a couple of months ago and she had found out that she had been accepted to the school for fairies a couple weeks later. Musa continued to read the packet and as she read the sentence 'Red Fountain, the school for heroics is only a stones throw away from Alfea' and she couldn't help but wonder who her friends would be.

She had always been a bit shy, but when she became friends with people she became much more extroverted. Would she fit in at Alfea as well as she did here? And what about the heroes and the witches? She had heard some of the students at Alfea talking about the events they had with the heroes when she visited the school. If there were formal dances she would have to go alone since she was with Daniel, so she would need some close friends around. The excitement was mixed with anxiety, but overall she was curious to see what life would be outside of the Harmonic Nebula would be. There was so much she could do and so much she could learn, she was beyond excited. But there was still a bittersweet feeling about the whole situation. She couldn't imagine not being around her best friends for so long and not to mention Daniel. They had been dating for 6 months now and they had become very close.

She and Daniel had been best friends for as long as she can remember. He was the prince of her planet's most valued ally. Their planets had been very close for many years and so it only made sense that they grew up together. Everything seemed to be very innocent and it was always great that way, but one random spring day after school she and Daniel were walking back to her dorm room to study for a test and on their way to her room, Daniel stopped her and without any warning, kissed her. Musa blushed as she recalled the memory, when she thought back on it, she wondered why she didn't pull away and question Daniel. Instead, she kissed his back as avidly as he kissed her. And from then on they had been dating and everyone seemed to be happy about the new found romance.

Without realizing, Musa had let the hours pass in the garden and before she knew it 4:00 rolled around and she needed to get ready for the night. She quickly slipped into a little black dress and walked out of the palace doors to see Daniel pulling up. He got out of the jet black Lamborghini and walked up to her with a dozen red roses. His dark brown hair lightly flicked in the wind and his emerald green eyes were fixated on her. "New car?" Musa asked taking the flowers and handing them to one of the guards who took them inside. Before answering, Daniel put his arms around Musa and pulled her close. He gently kissed her on the lips and the kiss quickly escaladed and he and Musa were soon in an intense lip lock.

"Yeah, I felt like driving a new car this morning," Daniel said when he and Musa parted. In their world, buying a half million dollar car on a whim was hardly out of the ordinary. "Now onto our evening," Daniel said opening the car door for Musa and she sat on the soft leather interior.

"So where are we going," Musa asked as she leaned in to give him a quick kiss.

"It's a surprise," Daniel said with a smirk on his face as he switched gears and sped off the castle's entranceway and into the capital city. When they finally arrived to their destination, it was an upscale restaurant in the city, Musa looked around a bit skeptically wondering what was going on. She was supposed to go to dinner with everyone after he date with Daniel so she knew there was something going on. Before she could ask anything, Daniel took Musa's hand and led her into the restaurant.

"Daniel, what's going – " Musa began as she walked into the dark restaurant, but her question was cut off by all of the lights coming on while simultaneously all of her friends and some people she hardly knew, popped out from behind tables and columns and took pictures.

"SURPRISE!" everyone screamed as the princess walked. Musa was completely floored by the gesture. She couldn't get a word out of her mouth as many cameras continued to flash. She was expecting a small dinner with 10 of her closest friends, but instead she got a huge farewell party with at least 100 people in the room. In front of the huge crowd of people were Musa's closest friends, standing with cameras and huge smiles painted across their faces.

"Oh we are going to miss you so much!" Annabelle said as she walked up to the flabbergasted princess and gave her a hug. Annabelle was a princess of a nearby planet and she was the twin sister of Isabelle, who was next to come up and jump on and hug Musa.

"MUSA! Oh you look so cute!" Isabelle exclaimed avoiding saying something that might upset Musa like 'we're going to miss you'. Isabelle and Annabelle were always the life of the party and while they had very similar personalities there were key contrasts between them and it was as if one balanced out the other.

Musa greeted her close friends and then they all settled at a large table in the center of the room. The room was filled with a bunch of small tables with one large on in the middle. There was music playing and the party was still rather tame since it was early in the night. Musa looked around the room and took in the whole situation, she really would miss home.

"Devon won't be the same without you," Leslie said from her seat at the table. Musa was the only one of her close friends that was leaving Devon Prepatory for another school. She had become so used to everything and now she was leaving for something completely new, it was both exciting and menacing.

"I'm sure you guys will be fine," Musa insisted. "And I will be coming home a lot, I'll even come to school with you guys one day, I'm sure headmaster Charleston will love it," Musa joked. She and her friends hadn't made the headmaster's job easy since the day they began in the prep school. Not that they were trouble makers, but the boys did engage in pranks and normal things like that, but they hardly ever got in trouble because their parents could always bail them out of any mess. Musa remembered one particular time when Daniel, Duke and Brian set up a soap opera like scrip in which they were all in love with the same person and played it out during class one day, it went so far as to them staging a fight in front of the whole class. (1) It not only wasted 15 minutes of class time, but it also landed three of them in Charleston's office being threatened with explosion, although it never happened.

"Yeah, I'm headmaster Charleston would love to have you come back," Duke shot back sarcastically.

"I was never the one that got in trouble!" Musa defended. While she was never the one who would be interrupting class or pulling a prank, she was the one who stood by her non law abiding friends and her need to get her opinion out there usually landed her in as much trouble as the boys.

"Please, your big mouth got you in more trouble than you care to mention," Isabelle claimed.

"Hey you better watch your mouth when you get there," Brian, another of Musa's close friends, advised. "Cloud Tower isn't far and I hear witches aren't the most forgiving, especially after getting attitude from fairies. And I don't think the 'princess card' is going to work with them," Brian teased. Everyone knew about Musa's inability to let things go, and while it was charming at times, they knew that some people, especially disgruntled witches, wouldn't take too well to her 'charm'.

"True, better watch your back," Leslie teased as everyone laughed. "But there will be people to take care of you, the school of heroics isn't too far away," Leslie said and tossed an evil smirk over to Daniel. Daniel didn't say anything, he knew Leslie was joking, but he did put his arm around Musa and gave her a quick kiss on cheek.

"Don't worry Daniel, I'm sure nobody will steal Musa away,(2)" Isabelle continued for Leslie. "But I'm sure boys will try,"

"Doesn't matter," Musa defended. "I already have my prince charming," Musa said jokingly laying her head on Daniel's shoulder while everyone at the table either said 'aww' or threw a small piece of food at the couple in a joking manner.

"So, when do you finally leave tomorrow?" Nate asked sarcastically. He was also a royal and he was dating Leslie for years now.

"4 am," Musa answered. She was not one to wake up early and from the smile on everyone's faces they knew that too. "I will arrive there around noon,"

"Sucks," Isabelle said looking down at her plate and idly playing with her food. "Guess you should stay here," She finished in a mumble so low that she figured nobody heard, she did forget however that she was in the Musical realm and that most of her friends had impeccable hearing.

"Is!" (3) Duke said to Isabelle in a disapproving tone. Duke was also one of Musa's close friends and he was probably the only one of the group that retained any knowledge that they acquired during etiquette class.

"Guys please, let's not talk about me leaving," Musa begged. She was already sad enough that she was leaving, but seeing that they were all upset about it made her feel bad that she was also really excited about it.

"Musa's right, tonight is about having fun," Annabelle cheered. "I propose a toast! Here's to the winners that won us, the losers who lost us and the lucky bastards that have yet to met us!"

"And to knowing that this will be one of many amazing nights that we will all spend together," Leslie continued knowing that just because Musa was leaving didn't mean that they weren't going to be close anymore.

"And finally partying like there's no tomorrow," Daniel continued as he raised his glass. "And living the life people only dream of," With that everyone raised their glasses and took a drink. After that toast the party finally got started when Nate went over to the turn tables and decided to try his hand at being a DJ. Finally the night began to get going and it became the party that everyone planned on. For most of the night Musa sat at her seat while everyone in the room came to her and wished her their best and told her how much they would miss her.

Musa thought it was pretty funny since she really didn't know many of them. Musa was never the type of girl to be the 'queen bee' in a school and yet she managed to become the role at Devon Prep, in fact she was actually pretty reserved and it normally took awhile for her to really open up to people. She was on the dance team and she was dating one of the hottest guys at the school and when she thought about it, she was the epitome of 'queen bee'. While she was never the one deciding who was in the 'in' crowd, she left that to her less benevolent friends, she was the one that everyone in the school knew. She was after all the princess of the planet and as such everyone knew her name.

For most of the night there was a small crowd around Musa because she was the guest of honor, but a certain prince was getting lonely and wanted to spend as much time as he could with his girlfriend. Daniel was with Nate and Duke talking to some of his friends, but he kept looking over to Musa hoping at some point the crowd around her would deflate so he could steal her away for a bit. "Dude, you're drooling," Nate commented as he flicked his dirty blonde hair out of his face.

"Can you blame me?" Daniel said when he looked over to Musa.

"Actually I can," Nate shot back. "Considering Musa is like my sister," When Nate saw how his best friend was looking at Musa with an almost worried look on his face, he quickly dismissed everyone else in order to talk to Daniel.

"I don't have anything to worry –" Daniel asked before Nate jumped in.

"No, you don't," Nate reassured. "Musa is a lot of things and none of them are deceitful,"

"Yeah, you're right," Daniel said to Nate and gave him a thankful pat on the shoulder and then made his way over to Musa and quickly pulled her away from the crowd of people around her.

"Thanks," Musa said when she was pulled out of the group. She too wanted to spend time with her significant other.

"Well, I was wondering if the princess wouldn't mind dancing with me,"

"I'd love to," Musa said happily and then Daniel led her onto the dance floor. Musa moved along with Daniel, who happened to be an excellent dancer, as everyone else at the party enjoyed themselves.

"I'm going to miss you so much," Daniel whispered in her ear as they danced. He was the kind of guy that got everything he wanted, he was a prince after all and his parents chose to give him whatever he wanted instead of quality time with him, so Daniel was very used to having everything. And he wanted, more than anything, was for Musa to stay. There was so much he was worried about with Musa's leaving. Brian was right, she would be going to school not too far away from a whole building full of witches that were coming into their power, and Musa was never the kind of person who let even a small injustice go. So if there were any pranks between schools, which was sure to happen since it was pretty well known that Alfea and Cloud Tower were rivals, then Musa was probably never going to let it go and she would defiantly try to get retribution. That was not the only thing he was worried about, he knew that Red Fountain was close to Alfea and that the two schools had many events together. The last thing he needed was his girlfriend far away from him and surrounded by a bunch of guys that went to an all male school. He was worried that she would find someone else there and even though he knew Musa was not the type of person to ever cheat, it still scared him to know that she could find someone else.

Musa didn't answer; rather she laid her head onto his shoulder and fell into his comfort. They continued to dance, granted it was much slower now. After a couple of minutes Musa pulled away a bit and looked into his dark emerald eyes. "I'm going to miss you too," For a second there was nothing else going on in her mind, all she could think about was how great it was to have him around holding her like this. Without another word, Daniel bent down and kissed her, on some level hoping it was enough to make her stay. When they finally parted, Daniel kept his arms around her waist and he looked down at her with a smile.

"Don't you let any of those heroes in training whisk you away from me," Daniel said only half joking and by the tone in his voice, Musa could tell that he was feeling a bit insecure.

"Hey, nobody knows me better than you," Musa said looking into his eyes intently making sure that he knew how much he meant to her. "And you have to know that nobody can ever replace you," It was true, Daniel and Musa grew up together and they knew everything about each other. Musa did love him, but she wasn't sure if it was in a romantic way. She felt an attraction to Daniel, but who wouldn't? He had amazing green eyes and dark brown hair that had a mix of other brown hues thrown in, he carried himself with confidence and he did have a pretty good body, he was the star player on the soccer team. But, she really didn't know how deeply rooted her feelings were for him in the romantic sense.

"Yeah, I know," Daniel said confidently. He then took Musa's hand and led her back inside to her party. All he wanted to do tonight was party with his girlfriend and forget temporarily that she was leaving.

The two continued to dance for awhile until Isabelle grabbed Musa and dragged her away from Daniel. "Time for some presents!" she exclaimed happily. While everyone else was running around the restaurant partying and having fun, Musa and her closest friends went to the private VIP room where there was a table set for them and there were a few gift boxes on a table next to the plush couches.

"Guys, you didn't have to get me anything," Musa said as Isabelle continued to pull her into the room by holding onto her wrist. Everyone else followed behind them until the entire group was seated comfortably on the couch.

"Oh yes we did," Leslie insisted. "We can't have you forgetting about when you get to Magix, now can we?"

"Besides, you know how much we love buying things" Annabelle added. She handed Musa a gift that was from Nate, it was a new guitar that had her name engraved onto it. Musa opened all of the gifts and finally there was one relatively large box left, it was colorfully wrapped and rather thin.

"This one is from all of us," Brian said handing her the gift. Musa tore through the warping paper quickly and opened the box and slid out a crystal 8x10 picture frame. The frame itself was magnificent, but the picture inside was what made tears well in Musa's eyes. It was a picture of all of them at party that Leslie's parents threw awhile back, they were dressed in beautiful clothes and everyone looked amazing. While the party was a bore, the company was amazing, their little group managed to have fun wherever they were.

After another hour of conversation in the VIP room, Musa realized that she only had three hours before she had to get on a jet bound for Magix. "Guys this party was perfect, I mean it. Thanks so much!" Musa said trying to keep her composure even though she knew she was saying bye to all of her friends who had become her family over the years. "And these gifts are – ," Musa couldn't continue so Nate stepped in.

"We're gonna miss you," Nate said and gave her a hug. Leslie was next, she smiled and went up to Musa.

"Have fun and behave," She said in an almost motherly tone.

"But not too much," Isabelle continued after Leslie finished.

"Have lots of fun, don't worry so much about behaving," Added Annabelle.

"We love you," Brian said and gave Musa a hug. Finally Duke came and gave her a hug as well except he didn't say anything since he knew he would probably begin balling like a baby if he tried. Musa gave everyone a final hug and walked out of the restaurant with Daniel.

The ride home from the party was a lot different from the ride to the party. The car was completely silent and Musa and Daniel knew what exactly was going through the other's head. Musa knew that her leaving was effecting Daniel more than he cared to admit. She was not only his girlfriend, but she was his best friend and it was a lot to lose at once. Musa put her hand on his knee while he drove and smiled, trying to comfort him, he looked over to her and smiled. "Getting ideas?" Daniel said with a smirk on his face not turning his attention away from the rode.

Musa laughed at his attempt to lighten the situation. "With you, always," Musa joked. This managed to break the awkward tension in the car and the two began to talk about different events that occurred at her farewell party. They became so wrapped up in the conversation that neither of them noticed that they had arrived at Musa's castle. The night was now officially over.

Daniel got out of the car and like the gentlemen he was, opened the door for Musa. The two walked over to the castle doors and Daniel stood there facing Musa. "I've got something for you," Daniel said pulling out a small jewelry blue box.

"Oh my god!" Musa said in a more horrified tone than anything else. The small box resembled a ring jewelry box and there was no way he was giving her a ring was there?

"Calm down, I'm not proposing," Daniel said and let out a laugh. "No matter how happy it will make our fathers," Musa nodded and took the box from Daniel's hand, now that he was offering it to her, and she quickly opened it to see a beautiful diamond music note pendant set in platinum. In between each exquisite diamond was a sapphire and he necklace seemed to glow in the night and the diamonds were as brilliant as the stars that light up the sky.

"Daniel…" Was all Musa could get out of her mouth, but her expression said it all. She was swept off her feet by the gesture, but Daniel was really good at being a romantic so she couldn't be very surprised. Before Musa could say anything else, Daniel took the necklace and proceeded to put it around Musa's neck.

"I'm gonna miss you," Daniel said when he finished and Musa fixed the necklace's position till it was perfect. "A lot," He finished, then he lifted her chin so she was looking at him. He could tell anymore talk about leaving was going to make her cry, so he figured he would try to lighten the emotion of the situation. "But absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?"

"You're such a dork," Musa laughed and put her slender arms around his neck. "But, you're right,"

"Yeah, I am," Daniel said as he put his arms around her waist and pulled her into a passionate kiss. Musa could feel her entire body heat up to his touch, it was moments like this that made her never want to leave. Finally Daniel pulled away from Musa and took her face firmly, yet tenderly, in his hands and looked her in the eye. "Call me when you get there okay?"

"Okay," Musa said. Daniel gave her one last peck on the cheeks and made his way down the grande steps of the palace and gave her one last look before getting into his car. Right before he got in the drivers seat door Musa stopped him when she called out to him one last time. "I'm going to miss you too!" She yelled making sure he knew that she cared for him as well. He smiled and got into his care and began driving, this time a lot slower; off the palace's entrance way.

Musa gave one last wave to the car as a maid opened the palace doors for her. She walked into the castle, hearing nothing but her heels clacking against the marble floors, and leaned against the door that she had just entered from. There will a million feelings, thoughts, worries, and questions running through her mind, but it felt so good. Musa touched the cold platinum pendant that rested against her collar bone. She didn't know what she was feeling, a mixture of excitement, anxiety, sadness, happiness and then there was an overall feeling of calm.

There was no word for it, but it felt like magic.

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_1. This idea was taken from the Gilmore Girls when Logan, Colin and Finn stage a 'lovers quarrel' in which Logan and Colin are both in love with Rory and Finn must break up the staged argument in the middle of Rory's philosophy class. Something like this was pulled in my school just recently as a senior prank as well. Except me and some others got onto the school P.A system and played music during the school day and all the dance team members went into different classes and danced. - - we got in a bit of trouble_

_2. haha – I know this isn't a very Musa/Riven chapter, but keep in mind I am a huge Musa/Riven fan. I had to throw a quote like this in. _

_3. 'Is' is the nickname we have for our friend Isabelle. _

_Okay so that was chapter one, the next one will be the next episode, which was 'More than high school'. Hope you enjoyed it!_

_xoxo,  
princessm_


	2. More Than High School

_Alright so I decided to keep a lot of the script the same from the show but I refuse, refuse, refuse to make Musa say things like 'that's whack' when I heard that I was embarrassed for her. I mean really who talks like that! With the exception of the fresh prince (will smith in his role in the fresh prince of Bel Air' nobody should say those types of things. _

_So if you haven't figured it out, I will be doing the entire first season so this is episode two, more focused around Musa of course. _

* * *

**More Than High School**

Alfea was just a majestic as Musa remembered. There were crème colored pillars in the entrance way and Musa made sure to take mental note of every detail. Even though she was so far from her real home, she felt very at home here. It was hard not to, the school itself was so welcoming and warm. Musa walked through the front gate and into the quad and looked down at her paper. She was supposed to meet Miss Griselda, the only thing that Musa knew about the faculty was that Ms. Faragonda was the head mistress and she had met her when she came to visit with her father.

"Musa Dannington," Musa said to the lady dressed in blue with glasses and a scowl on her face, from what she could guess, this was Griselda. Miss Griselda didn't say anything she simply looked down the list and flipped the page when she didn't see Musa's name on the first page.

"Do you have a certain title Miss Dannington," Miss Griselda said without looking up from the paper.

"Umm well yeah," Musa began a bit confused, she then realized that she had forgotten to say princess. "I am a princess,"

"Well you could have said that earlier your Highness," Griselda reprimanded. "I do not have all day to play these little guessing games with you," Musa would have said something to defend herself, but Griselda was talking too quickly and frankly Musa was a bit scared of her already. "You are in room 204, here is your key, you may go look at your room, your bags are waiting for you there, but you must be back her for the orientation,"

Musa was given the key and Griselda quickly dismissed her. She had never been dismissed so rudely in her life; normally people were kissing her feet and basically doing whatever she wanted because of her title. And even though she was treated in a manner that was not fitting, she loved it. She smiled and walked with backpack in hand into the school looking for her room before orientation. Musa was looking around the quad and decided to call Daniel since the last time she called him he was half asleep.

The whole school was filled with light and luckily for Musa, she happened to wander into the correct hallway and she found her room pretty quickly. In the hallway, right before she walked into there room, she saw a poster posted up on the wall. It was a poster for the Alfea Dance Team, they were holding auditions for new members of the team soon, and Musa took a quick mental note of that and continued on her way as she chatted with her boyfriend. Musa walked into the common room, a room she would be sharing with four other girls and walked up to a door that had her name written on it. Below her name there was another name, 'Techna' Musa figured that was the name of her roommate, after giving it a bit of thought Musa realized that she had never shared a room with anyone other than her friends when they had a sleep over.

She was the only child in her family and not to mention she was princess, her father gave her everything she wanted and made it so she never had to share anything in her life. Even when she was at Devon Prep all the students had their own dorm rooms and it was a little unnerving that she would be sharing a room with a complete stranger. (1) What if her roommate was completely nuts, or a complete freak show that stayed up all night reciting creepy poems or something. She couldn't help but laugh at the last thought as she walked around the empty room. Musa continued to talk to Daniel as she walked around her room aimlessly. There were two beds in parallel along with two desks, two closets and two bureaus. Musa's bags were waiting in the room as well, just as Miss Griselda had promised, but Musa wasn't in the mood to unpack. Especially since there were like 6 bags and a bunch of boxes that she had no desire to open up and unpack.

Instead, Musa took out her ipod from her backpack and sat down on the bed near the window, she figured since she had arrived first she got first choice on the bed and which side of the room she would be sleeping on. Daniel had to go so Musa said by to him and put her ipod on. She laid back on the bare bed and thought about what it would be like to be here, she felt a little alone, but at the same time she was looking forward to everything that was before her. She took a deep breathe and sat back on the bed and looked out the window, for the first time in her life her window didn't overlook a garden, but it did overlook the quad which was kinda nice. She noticed a large assembly of girls and decided to go downstairs and wait for orientation to begin, she didn't want to be late and face the wrath of Griselda.

* * *

Musa walked down the steps and heard her cell phone go off.

"So how is it?" Daniel asked Musa when she picked up the phone. "Sorry I had to leave abruptly, Isabelle crashed her Lexus…again,"

"OH MY GOD!" Musa said stopping in the hallway and almost yelling into the cell phone.

"Calm down, baby," Daniel cooed. "She hit the garage at her dad's beach house, she's fine, which is more than I can say for the garage, or the car,"

"Oh god… okay I need to call her," Musa said ready to say goodbye to Daniel before he stopped her.

"She's fine, how about you? How is it?"

"Just like I remember it, but I'm getting really nervous," Musa said into her cell phone. "I don't knew anyone here,"

"So what? Everyone will love you, trust me it's easy," Daniel said trying to comfort her.

"Aww, thanks, miss me yet?"

"You have no idea," Daniel said dejectedly on the other end of the phone. "But as long as you're happy, I'm good,"

"Aww, I miss you too and we'll defiantly talk later, but I think I have to go, remember that scary lady I told you about?"

"Yeah," Daniel laughed.

Well, she is staring at me, bye baby," Musa said before quickly hanging up the phone right before Miss Griselda walked up to her.

"Princess Musa," Griselda said before allowing Musa to introduce herself, which was when Musa realized that this was the same scary lady she had to sign in with. "Your father just called to make sure that you had arrived at Alfea safely, he requested that you have your own room, unfortunately we have already assigned you to a room with a roommate so you see the issue. Moving you to a new room may take a few days meaning you will have to move all of your things –,"

"I don't mind having a roommate," Musa said, frankly she got lost after she said 'room' and didn't feel like hearing the rest of the rant. "Sounds like fun,"

"Well then that problem is solved," Griselda said. "I trust you will not get in more trouble," she said and walked away. "Now come along the orientation will be beginning soon,"

_More trouble? When did I get in trouble? _Musa questioned to herself. She knew right then that Griselda was not the person she wanted to get on the bad side of and it would probably be best if she steered clear of her. She thought of what Isabelle might say if she met the grumpy old woman. Probably something like _no wonder she is a 'Miss' who would want to marry that harpy?_ Musa laughed to herself and felt nervous all over again. She was so close to her old friends, how could she possibly meet girls that were that great? Musa saw a bunch of girls begin to crowd around Miss Griselda and Miss Faragonda, she could only assume that the orientation was beginning so she took her place in the crowd and listened to their introduction to the school.

* * *

All the girls stood around the two teachers, mostly Griselda, began to speak. She began with the code of behavior in which she warned all the girls about breaking the rules. The one thing that seemed to ring in Musa's mind was when she mentioned the witches at Cloud Tower. Brian's voice popped up in her head when she heard Griselda say 'we have no punishment for going to Cloud Tower because nothing we can do will be as bad as what they will do to you if they catch you there'. And even though it was a warning, Musa was slightly intrigued, she couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if she did run into a witch and maybe even get in a fight. (2) It wasn't like her to start confrontations, but she had been so sheltered for her entire life, especially after her mother's death, that everything that pushed the limits seemed intriguing.

The girls were ushered into the main entrance of Alfea, once inside the Musa took in the true beauty of the school again. She looked around and noticed that the room seemed to have fallen silent, except for some blonde girl that she was sure Griselda pointed out earlier. Finally two doors opened and in walked Miss Faragonda, the head mistress of Alfea. She was the foil (3) of Griselda, she was kind, and she didn't look nearly as menacing. She sort of reminded Musa of her own grandmother, the nice one, not the crazy, somewhat senile and completely obsessed with all things royal one. "Welcome All! I am Miss Faragonda, your head mistress…"

Miss Faragonda went on to talk about how they would all come into their own as fairies and how they would become great at whatever they decided to pursue and that Alfea would be their spring board. It was the same inspirational speech that most teachers would give, but she seemed to mean it. She then went on to say that she expected all the girls to do their best and finally dismissed them all to go meet their roommates and enjoy the rest of the day.

Musa didn't want to go straight back to the dorm when they were dismissed. She figured she would wander around the campus for a couple minutes and see what was going around here, plus she wasn't really ready to meet her new roommates. They would probably become her new friends and she felt almost as if she were betraying her old friends by becoming friends with other people. It was crazy to think like that, but she couldn't help it. Alfea was a really nice school, it was a pretty much like Devon Prep, except it seemed more fairy tale like. Devon was a lot bigger and it was more city like. Musa liked the more serene environment.

After five minutes, Musa decided to head up to her room. It was time to face her new roommates. Even though she was excited, there was a mixture of that with anxiety and hope. Finally, Musa arrived at her room door and heard voiced inside talking. Musa opened the door when she heard the blonde one mention blowing up the potions lab last year and she thought it would be the perfect time to go into the room. They were already in conversation so it wouldn't be weird and she could say something witty.

When in doubt be funny. It was Annabelle's mantra for life. To her, life was basically one big party and the best way to start the party was with a cute joke or funny story. She did have a point, most people found her to be charming, but Musa wasn't great with first meetings, she tended to warm to people and develop into someone charming when she knew people for long time. But why not give it a try. "Yeah well word is," Musa said walking into the room wondering which of the girls was Techna, since she would be her roommate and thankfully none of the girls looked crazy. "Next time you want to pull something like that, a heads up would be awesome,"

Musa smiled when she saw the girls laugh. "Hi I'm Bl- Veranda," Veranda stated quickly correcting herself causing Musa to raise her eyebrow.

"I'm Princess Stella," Musa looked at the blonde one with a bit of confusion. She had never introduced herself as 'princess' unless she was specifically told to. She was really hoping Stella wouldn't turn out like the many girls that went to Devon Prep. Girls that only cared for rank and wouldn't associate or even act civilly toward those below them. Musa looked behind Stella and saw that she had a single room, she couldn't help but smile at that since an hour ago Griselda was freaking out because they couldn't find a single room for her.

"I'm Flora," replied the one with the light brown hair happily.

"And I'm Techna," Musa looked at her new roommate and smiled. She didn't look crazy or like the kind of person who would stay up all night reading scary poetry. "Looks like we're sharing a room,"

Musa nodded and smiled at Techna warmly. "Looks like, I haven't unpacked much yet, but it looks like nobody else has either…" Musa said taking a quick scan of the room.

"You know I'm famished," Stella said a bit out of the blue. "I have a brilliant idea, what do you say we get outta here and go downtown for a pizza,"

"Great idea, downtown Magix is so much fun!" Flora exclaimed.

"What's it like" Veranda asked with starry eyes.

"It's amazing (4)" Musa answered.

"You've never been?" Flora questioned.

"No, but if we can grab a slice, I'm so there,"

"Sounds good," Musa agreed along with the rest of the girls. They all walked out of Alfea talking about their favorite places in Magix and places that Veranda had to see, since she had never been to Magix before.

* * *

The girls sat in the bus and continued their conversation. "So Veranda you've never left you're kingdom before?" Flora questioned when the bus began moving.

"No never," Veranda answered.

"Well it is so much fun!" Musa said excitedly.

"So Musa, where are you from," Veranda asked a bit nervously.

"The Harmonic Nebula,"

"Cool, so you've like grown up with music and dance and stuff like that?" Flora asked.

"Yeah, I guess it's a kind of like birthright for me. I play a bunch of instruments and I sing, and I was hoping to join the Alfea Dance team,"

"Oh the dance team is amazing!" Stella exclaimed excitedly. "You should definitely try out,"

"I think I will," Musa said. She hadn't really decided on weather she would or wouldn't try out for the team, but she loved to dance it would probably be a lot of fun, not to mention that she would be able to meet new people since she was told before she left home to open up more.

"The Harmonic Nebula," Techna said speaking up, she hadn't said anything since they got on the bus and Musa was wondering if she was just shy or maybe she didn't like her. Musa shook off the insecurity and continued to listen. "Known for it's diversity in the art, especially music and oh you're the princess!"

"Oh yeah that too," Musa said looking back at the girls who looked a bit surprised. Was it that weird that she had forgotten to mention it?

"You're a princess too!" Stella squealed happily. Musa cringed inwardly, she was truly hoping that her first impression of Stella was wrong. "Then why haven't I ever seen you before?"

"I'm not too big on the whole royal affair thing," Musa answered.

"Oh," Stella said as she gazed drifted off. "So Flora, where are you from!" Stella squealed again. That was when Musa began to think that maybe was Stella that excited all the time. Musa kinda drifted off for a few minutes and thought about the last time she was in Magix, it was with Daniel and the rest of her friends. They had decided to go to Magix for Isabelle and Annabelle's birthday and it was the beginning of her relationship with Daniel. She had always had fond memories of Magix and now she would be in the city even more.

The conversation shifted from girl to girl as everyone talked about where they were from and why they had decided to come to Alfea. Musa looked at her four roommates and decided that she was pretty happy about who she would be living with. None of them seemed to be crazy, Stella was tittering between sanity and insanity, but overall they were all pretty cool. Finally they arrived at Magix and Musa looked around at the city. She had been there before plenty of time, but this time seemed different this time, probably because this time she was there with all new people in a whole new situation. The city seemed to be filled with possibilities and Musa seemed to have gotten a second wind right at that moment.

The girls were now talking to Veranda, asking her about where she was from and stuff like that. Musa almost felt bad for her, Veranda had never even left her home world. Since Musa was little, she had been trying to get freedom away from the restraints of a royal life and it looked like Veranda had fallen victim to it. "Well prepare to be blown away," Flora said when Musa drifted back into the conversation as the bus stopped in Magix.

"So what do you think?" Musa asked and got the answer before Veranda even had a chance to answer. Veranda seemed to a bit disappointed by Magix, but it was no surprise. The city was hyped up to be the most magical place in the universe (5) and it may be a bit deceiving since this wasn't the type of magic that most little girls imagine in their heads. Musa was a bit disappointed that she could no longer use magic in the city anymore. Since she was a student at Alfea, they were required to do magic only when supervised, even though that never really happened.

"Time for pizza," Flora said after Veranda accepted the reality that was Magix.

"Thank god, I'm starving," Musa said as he girls began to walk over to the pizza place. On the walk through the magix, the girls began talking about their past experiences in the famous city, all stories were meant for Veranda since she had never been to the city before and they wanted to tell her that the city was fun, since she seemed a bit disappointed when she first saw it. Musa wondered why Veranda seemed so lost in the city, she understood that not leaving her home planet led to being a bit naive about the universe, but it was a little weird that she was so unfamiliar with things that were pretty commonly known universally.

The group of Alfea girls walked past designer stores for everything possible, hats, bags, shoes and even glassed. Stella had recalled a time when she attended a ball thrown by her parents, she said that she had her first kiss in Magix. Flora talked about coming her with her aunt and uncle for her birthday and her parents threw her a surprise birthday party. The stories were rather interesting and Musa was beginning to get a sense of who her new roommate and friends were. Techna was next to tell her story about Magix, hers' seemed a lot more boring than the others since she decided to attend computer camp her when she was eleven, but her face seemed to light up when she talked about it, so Musa humored her and pretended to be interested in rebooting central systems.

* * *

"So Musa, what is you've fave Magix moment," Stella asked putting a colorful title on their conversation.

"I'm not really sure," Musa said honestly. She had been to Magix a lot when she was growing up, but she didn't really know what her favorite memory was. "I've been here a lot,"

"Come on, you have to have a favorite," Veranda insisted.

"Okay well I guess it was this one time when I was three," Musa said beginning to recall a very early memory. This was one of her favorite times in her entire life, she began to smile when she thought about the trip that she and her mother had made to Magix when her father was busy with the kingdom. "Well I was like three and me and my mom were at the palace and my dad had to go to some big meeting on Crescendo for a few days and I guess she could tell that I was really bored all stuffed up in the palace," Musa began. She stopped for a second, not to sure if she should continue or not. She barely knew these girls and yet she was going to open up to them and share one of her most cherished memories. But then, they seemed so nice and Musa felt some type of kinship with all of them, even Stella.

"So she told me that we were going to take a day out because as she put it 'a day you let go to waste by being upset is a day you lose a bit of magic. So she took me to the jet and I pretty much fell asleep on the flight, when I woke up we were in Magix and I spent the entire day with her. We went to the park, then a play and then we had a bunch of ice cream and then we fell asleep in the hotel. The next morning my dad was there with us and we all spent the rest of the weekend together," Musa said recalling the event perfectly. She didn't know why she didn't think about this memory as much and then a sudden chill in her heart made her chest seize with pain for a quick second, so short none of the girls noticed. That was the last weekend like that that they had ever had, her mother became very sick a couple days after they got back to the palace and not to soon after that, she died.

"Wow, that's so cute!" Stella said as she happily skipped along the sidewalk that mimicked the way a three year old would skip through the streets with an ice cream in their hands. Stella then looked over to Musa and say that her smile had dropped and she looked sad. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah fine," Musa said brushing off the sadness. "See Veranda, Magix may not have dragons and unicorns and giants and stuff like that,"

"But the city is magical," Flora finished. Techna nodded and 'mmhmm'ed to that comment and the girls finally got to the pizza parlor. They all sat around a table and began to eat the pizza that was at the center of the table. (6) The girls began to eat and at first the table was silent because all of the girls were practically starved and the only thing on their mind was getting food in their empty stomachs.

Veranda had decided that she would call her parents again and she pulled out her cell phone and began to dial a number but each time she put the cell phone to her ear she would hang up and try again.

"Veranda what are you doing?" Flora asked as she saw Veranda began fiddling around with her cell phone.

"I don't know what's going on with this thing, I can't get any signal," Veranda answered as she flung her hand around with her cell phone in it in some vain attempt, that Musa could only guess, was to 'catch' some cell phone reception.

"Well I know why, this thing is practically ancient," Techna concluded when she gave the phone a good looking over. "You are going to need an inter-realm phone if you want to make any calls." Then Veranda said something that cause the princess of Solaria to jump up in her seat and the two quickly mumbled to each other as Techna looked over Veranda's phone and Musa and Flora sat eating their food.

"You're going to have to use a pay phone, there is one around the corner, here take my card," Techna said handing Veranda a phone card.

"Okay thanks," Veranda said gratefully and got up quickly and left the table.

Just then Musa felt her phone vibrating in her pocket. She quickly pulled it out and saw the name on the screen. It was Daniel. A smile quickly grew across Musa's face when she saw the Daniel was calling. She looked up from the phone and saw that all of the girls were looking at her and her obviously exuberant expression. "Speaking of calls, I should take this," Musa said excusing herself from the table and walking over to a more secluded spot.

* * *

"Hey," Musa said into her phone trying to dial back her excitement.

"Hey baby," Daniel answered back to his girlfriend.

"What's going on there?" Musa asked hearing some noise in the background.

"Just watching a movie,"

"Aw, which one?" Musa asked. "It doesn't really matter, I just wish I could watch it with you,"

"I am gonna miss you falling asleep on my shoulder," Daniel noted sincerely. And then in a more whimsical tone, "the drooling however..."

"I'm going to miss you screaming like a girl when something scary happens," Musa joked referring to a time when their little group was congregated in her dorm room at Devon and they were watching a horror movie and they paused it to get some snacks, but Daniel continued to watch. So, in retaliation Musa and Nate decided to scare the carp out of him and it seemed to work really well.

"One time!" Daniel said into the phone. "And it was because you and Nate snuck up behind me at the same time,"

"Just admit you were scared,"

"I wasn't scared,"

"Fine," Musa laughed finally surrendering in their play argument. "How's Is?"

"She's fine, her dad got her a new car to replace the one she banged up this morning, so she's actually off the wall right now," Daniel answered.

"Good," Musa said into the phone. "I miss you," she blurt out after she felt like she missed her old life so much. She needed to talk to someone so bad and Daniel had always been there for her, even before they had become romantically involved.

"Muse, baby you know I miss you too," Daniel said comforting her. "but, you've only been there a day, give it some time."

"I know, it's just hard,"

"I know, but hey we'll be seeing you soon," Daniel said trying to lift her spirits. "And we can make up for some lost time…"

Musa giggled and smiled, when she heard Daniel tell her to calm down it worked, she felt a lot better. She needed to tell someone how she felt and Daniel was always there to listen to her. "Oh and what do you plan on doing," Musa asked coyly.

"This and that," Daniel began. "You'll have to wait and see,"

"I look forward to it," Musa said regaining her smile and positive disposition that she had when she saw Daniel calling her. "I should get back,"

"Yeah," Daniel said with a dejected tone. "Okay well enjoy Magix, I'll talk to you later,"

"Okay, bye," Musa said.

"Bye baby," Daniel said hanging up the phone. Musa hung up right after and took a deep breathe before walking back to the table. She missed him so much, but it was nice to talk to him, she needed it.

* * *

Musa came back from the other end of the patio and stuck the phone back in her pocket. She sat around and noticed that Veranda was still not back. "Hey guys where's Veranda?"

"Yeah she's been gone awhile, I mean the call couldn't have taken that long," Techna said aloud as she looked around wondering where Veranda was.

"Maybe we should go look for her, I mean she doesn't know the city and it is getting dark," Flora said beginning to look around to see if Veranda was on her way back.

"Yeah, let's go girls," Stella said as she got up from the table and the rest of the girls got up and followed.

The girls walked around the city frantically looking for Veranda, but they could not manage to find her. The girls began to worry and Musa was ready to call the police when they heard a maniacal laugh and then someone demand to know where princess Stella was. The group of fairies quickly rushed over to where they heard to voice, thanks to Musa's impressive hearing ability. "I'm right here!" Stella yelled when they finally arrived in front of three witches, answering their demand for her.

The girls glanced over to Veranda to see that she was frozen in a huge block of ice, with panic in her eyes Stella yelled, "Let's go girls," The four remaining fairies quickly changed into their Winx powers ready to defend themselves from the witches and their ogre. The ogre began to advance when Techna called out "Digital Web!"

When the ogre seemed immobilized for a few seconds to seize the opportunity and continue on their attack. "Subwoffer blast!" she shouted and fired a high intensity musical attack at the ogre.

Flora followed in Musa's example and threw an attack of her own. "Ivy rope,"

The ogre was now completely immobilized and Musa silently cheered victory until she realized that there were still witches that they had to deal with, she realized this a bit late because while the witch dressed in blue was babbling something, Musa was too busy getting excited for winning against the ogre. She was pulled from her thought when she saw an icy attack coming straight at her.

"Alright everybody get behind me," Techna yelled. "Firewall," said the fairy of technology as she erected a shield that kept them safe from the icy attack.

Unfortunately, directly after the first attack by the witches, the witch with the frizzy hair fired another attack. This time it was a lightning attack and while that attack brewed quickly the witch clad in blue began to chant for another spell. Fortunately, before either of the attacks could do any damage; Stella used her magix to save them. "Sun Power!"

Stella threw her ring into the air an it opened into a septor that she quickly caught. "Get us out of here," She yelled quickly and with a flash they were all transported them to a street in Magix. Musa looked around after the spell and let out a sigh of relief when she realized that they were out of danger. Then, her attention was focused towards Veranda since she had just been pulled from a block of ice.

"It's okay you could have survived another 15 minutes in that ice," Stella congratulated Bloom as she heated up Veranda, who was sitting on a bench, freezing cold. "you know considering you're from earth and all, you did outstandingly splendid Bloom, you were so brave," Stella stopped talking when she noticed the look on Bloom's face.

"Stella," Flora said in a stern face when Stella looked over to her with a nervous expression. "Why did you just call her Bloom and say she's from earth?"

Musa stood there wondering what was going on, but at the same time she wasn't too surprised. From what she knew of Earth, it wasn't a part of the magical universe which would explain why Veranda, or Bloom, seemed so frazzled when she was around magic and the city of Magix. Everyone in the magical dimension knew about Magix and there was no way that she could have been so naive and clueless about it. "There might be some tiny minor details we might need to fill you in on, I'll give you the whole scoop on the way back to Alfea," Stella explained.

* * *

"So I came here after I found out that I had magical powers and since I obviously wasn't enrolled here, so we figured if I said I was Veranda than there was no harm since she isn't coming here," Bloom said as she finished explaining what had happened when she changed her identity. It was already pretty late and all the girls knew that they had broken then curfew, but all in all it was a pretty amazing day in Musa's perspective. It was her first day at Alfea and she had already gotten in a fight with witches! It was an amazing feeling that she had never felt before. Normally, if there was any threat to her security, she would be surrounded by secret service or police in a second, but this time it was like she was duking it out with these witches all on her own, with the help of her new friends of course.

"Wait, so you've never been around magic before?" Musa asked amazed the the crazy coincidence that Stella ran into probably the only magical being on Earth, just as the bus they were taking home stopped at Alfea.

"Nope never," Bloom said and then immediately quieted down when Stella put her fingers to her lips. "I think I wanna tell Miss. Faragonda the truth," Bloom confessed after the five fairies made their way to the middle of the quad.

"We'll talk about it later, for now, just follow me," Stella insisted. She had been her the year before so it made sense that she would know how to sneak back into the school.

Just then a bright light shined down on all five of them and Musa heard a voice that she would not soon forget. "Freeze!" said Miss Griselda and the girls stopped knowing that they had been caught. "Do you have any idea what time it is," she scolded.

"We were worried about you girls, go to bed right away and we will talk about this tomorrow," Miss Faragonda said strictly, but still with a certain softness in her voice, with obvious anger and almost disappointment in her voice.

Musa turned to go back to her dorm when Miss Griselda stopped Bloom and asked her to confess what she had confessed to them on the bus. It all went over smoother than Musa thought it would, she was actually a little surprised since she got scolded for absolutely nothing earlier that day. Finally the girls got to go back to their rooms and rest after a long day.

* * *

Musa was back in her dorm room when she heard her phone ring go off from the bed. Musa, who was putting on her pajama top, walked over to the bed and picked it up with her head still only half way through her shirt.

"So how is the school for fairies?" said a voice that Musa quickly realized was Leslie's.

"Hey Les!" Musa said happily finally sticking the rest of her head through her shirt. "It's really good,"

"What did you do today?"

"Just some unpacking and I went out with my roommates,"

"Aww well I hope you aren't forgetting about us," Leslie said over the phone. "Sharing a room…that's interesting,"

Musa laughed into the phone as she dried her hair with a towel, she had just gotten out of the shower and into her pajamas when her phone went off. Musa walked over to her window and looked out at the tranquil Alfea quad; just a few hours ago it was the bustling hub of the entire school, now the only movement was that of the fireflies flying through the night sky. She opened the window to let the gentle breeze in and smiled as it danced across her face. Leslie had called to make sure she was doing okay and she was. "Hey I am having a lot of fun, I was nervous for nothing,"

"I'm glad you're okay, have you talked to Daniel yet today?"

"I did earlier, I think I'll call him and say goodnight," Musa said as she looked up and saw Techna walked into their room. She smiled at Techna who gave her a quick wave and walked over and put a few more things from her bags away.

"Don't bother he's passed out here," Leslie laughed. "He, Isabelle, Duke and I were watching a movie and everyone is asleep,"

"Oh I missed it," Musa said sadly. She remembered Daniel mentioning that he was going to watch a movie and as much fun as she was having and as great as it was to experience things that she had never done before, she didn't like that she wasn't able to hang out with her other friends as well. She did feel a bit left out, but she was still happy.

"Don't worry about it, we'll see you in a couple of weeks right?" Musa was going back to the Harmonic Nebula at the end of the month to visit her family and friends for a weekend. She could barely contain her happiness when it came to going home.

"Yeah definitely, I think I'm gonna crash," Musa said as she yawned into the phone. "I'll talk to you tomorrow," Musa finished and Leslie said goodbye. Musa put her phone on its charger and got into bed. Musa wanted to tell Leslie about the fight that she got into with the witches, but she knew that would only serve to worry her and there was no need to do that. Besides Leslie would tell Daniel and Daniel would freak out for no reason, she was fine, but he was very protective. Plus if word ever got back to her father (7), Musa would be pulled out of the school immediately and she would be lucky if he ever let her out of his sight again. She decided that she would let this small tussle go, what were the chances of running into those witches again? It was very unlikely so she thought it was best to keep the little story to herself.

"Goodnight Musa," Techna said from her bed.

"Night Techna," Musa said lying back into her bed. Musa looked out the window at the night sky. She would be starting class the next morning and all she could do was think about what the year would hold for her.

All in all she was excited.

* * *

_**1.**__ Does anyone else wonder about that sort of thing? I am going to college in august (WOOT WOOT!!) anyway I was and still am pretty nervous about getting a roommate, I mean you will be living and sharing a room with this person. Its weird for me. _

_**2.**__ If only she knew…._

_**3.**__ A foil is someone who is the completely opposite of someone else, they contrast the other one completely. _

_**4.**__ As ranted about in the beginning, there will be no use of the phrase 'it's fresh' in this fic unless we are talking about fresh produce. _

_5. Next to Walt Disney World of course…I still miss my senior trip…._

_**6**__. hmm… how do they know about pizza? Last time I checked it's orgin is Italy, Earth. Hmmm….. perplexing._

_**7.**__ Anyone ever wonder why their parents were never informed about the going ons about their kids. I for one would like to know if my child got in a fight with a witch or fought three of the most powerful ones for control of the universe. But hey that's just me. _

_Next chapter will be 'Save the First Dance' when the boys meet the girls. - - Stay tuned_

_xoxo  
__princessm_


	3. Save the First Dance

* * *

Save the First Dance

_I have found myself typing this story in school instead of taking notes. I don't know how other schools do it but my school requires each student to carry a laptop with them to class and instead of notes, I've been writing about Musa. I think you would agree that this is a lot more interesting that the fundamental thermo of Calculus. Also, as a senior I have very little work that I will actually do, so that makes my schedule consist of going out with my friends, dance and writing this. So hopefully these updates will stay at a steady pace. Unless I get hit with a ridiculous paper that I have to do or something…_

_Anyway…_

* * *

**Save the First Dance**

Musa woke up to the sun shining directly in her eyes, maybe picking the bed by the window wasn't the best idea. For she could get herself to sit up she heard her roommate's techno sounding alarm go off. Instead of waking with the sun, Musa stuck her bed back under the pillow and tried to get a couple more minutes of shut eye, though the effort was in vain since a couple second later she could hear Techna shuffling around their room.

"Good morning Musa," Techna said as she stood in her pajamas in front of her laptop and checked her email. Musa simply nodded as she sat up in bed struggling to open her eyes. "Not a morning person I see,"

"I prefer sleeping at midnight and waking up a noon," Musa stated. Techna laughed and grabbed her towel and proceeded to go into the bathroom. Musa sat upright in her bed and looked over to her nightstand and looked at her cell phone. There was a text message from Daniel, _- Have a good first day, baby. - _As much as she wanted to call him, she needed to get ready for class, she was already on Miss Griselda's bad side, and she didn't need any more of the Alfea staff to dislike her. With that Musa put her phone back on the nightstand and grabbed some clothes and headed off to the other bathroom, she may have needed to share a room but she did get her own bathroom, which was nice.

"Good morning students," said professor Enchantra. "Welcome to potions class, I except all of you to work hard this year, but I promise you will enjoy this class, especially later this year when we begin our love potions unit," She said as a few girls cheered.

Musa sat their idly training random music notes on her paper thinking about the night before. She wondered why those witches were looking for Stella in the first place. She must have done something to piss them off last year. Musa pondered that thought for a few more moments and then tried to turn her focus back onto what the professor was saying, but it was all pretty much the same old introductory stuff. Don't mess around with unknown chemicals and potion ingredients, wear goggles, and Musa's favorite rule, that she was sure was just added after Stella's dismissal from the school. No unauthorized potion lab use and all volatile materials are under lock and key, students must get special permission to use them.

The professor continued to talk about classroom rules and regulations and then went over the classroom syllabus. It was becoming increasingly hard to stay awake, normally Musa was a good student, but she just couldn't get into the rhythm of 8 am classes after a long summer of partying. Luckily, the long lecture on how to act properly around potion equipment ended and Musa had just enough time to squeeze in a nap before lunch.

* * *

Musa walked into the common room and heard Bloom and Stella talking about her powers in her room, she would have offered some help or advice of some kind, but she was far to tired. Instead, Musa fell on top of her soft bed, not making the effort to take off her shoes or get under the covers. Finally about an hour and a half later Musa felt someone gently tapping her shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw Flora looking down at her with a smile and her head tilted. "Wake up Musa, it's time for lunch," she said softly and Musa nodded and sat up without saying a word.

"Thanks Flora, I'll be down soon," she said sleepily as she sat up in bed looking very similar to the way she looked that morning.

Lunch at Alfea was very much like what was seen in the movies, except it was a lot tamer. Most of the girls were friends with each other and they were all chatting about what they did over their summers and for those girls that had just become friends with each other, they were talking about their origins and all that other 'get to know you' introduction stuff. Musa saw her new friends sitting together.

Musa said hello to everyone and ate her lunch as the girls chatted about Bloom's inability to use her powers. Musa offered a few helpful solutions, but it seemed more like Bloom was frustrated more with herself and needed to vent, but that was what friends were for. "Well, maybe with some more practice you'll be about the control it more," Musa said trying to cheer her up since it was clear that advice was pretty useless.

"You just have to take it day by day," Stella said continuing in Musa's comforting tone. Musa looked up and felt bad for Bloom, she had to be dealing with so much, she just discovered magic and now she was far from home and it had to be a bit emotional and scary. There was no way that this was going to be easy for her.

"Yeah, I hope tomorrow is better," Bloom said dejectedly as she played with the food on her plate. The girls continued their conversation until they were interrupted by Miss Faragonda making an announcement.

"Young ladies, your attention please," Miss Faragonda said trying to get the room to settle down. In a couple of seconds the noise in the room died down and she continued. "I have a very exciting announcement to make. As is the Alfea tradition, we will kick off the new school year with a formal dance, our back to school gala will take place tomorrow night and our special quests will be the boys from Red Fountain School for heroics and bravery.

Musa immediately felt a bit uncomfortable, she didn't want to be the only one there not dancing with someone, but at the same time she couldn't just hang around a new guy. Or could she? She could always be friends with new guys and leave it at that, Musa quickly let go of the thought within a couple of second after she realized how petty she was being with herself. "We hope you will be warm and friendly hostesses and make them feel right at home,"

"But not too friendly, chaperones will be there and love spells and crush potions are strictly forbidden," Griselda added. It made Musa smile a bit, she figured Griselda would be the one to point out that the girls needed to 'behave' and she would probably be the only chaperone doing any real disciplining.

"But dancing is encouraged and the boys will bring surprise gifts for all, so I'm sure you will all have a lovely, time," Miss Faragonda said jumping back into the announcement. "I remember my first dance at Alfea, I met my husband there, well anyway it will be…"

* * *

After lunch and another class Musa took her books and settled against a tree in the quad (**1)**, she looked over to her cell phone and saw a missed call from Isabelle; she was ready to call her back when she heard someone call her name. "Musa, Musa Dannington," said a voice from behind. Musa turned around to see a very familiar brunette girl walking her way.

"Karen!" Musa said excitedly as she stood up from the grass and walked over to the brunette and gave her a hug. "I haven't seen you in such a long time!"

"Well, I spent the summer here in Magix," Karen said flicking her mahogany hair over her shoulder. "My parents were a bit upset, but I had an amazing time here, I didn't even know you were coming here, what happened to Devon Prep?"

"I could ask you the same question," Musa pointed out. Karen Drayton was the daughter of a Lord and Lady in Crescendo and she was closely acquainted to the Cunningham and Dannington family. She was a year older than Musa, but she had gone to the same school as her until she decided to go to Alfea when she was old enough and Musa rarely saw her after that. It had completely slipped her mind when she got her that Karen also attended the famed school for fairies.

"Well you know after the whole me and Nate scandal, I had to leave," Karen joked. Referring to a time when she had dated Nate, now Leslie's boyfriend, for about a week. They went out only so Karen could get her now boyfriend, Lucas, jealous. And Nate did the same to get back at Leslie for some childish stunt she pulled. It was all a very big immature series of events that everyone involved tried desperately tried to forget about and cover up, there was no need to blemish their impeccable reputations.

"God I hope you're kidding," Musa said between laughs.

"You know I am, but you still haven't answered my question. What brings you to my side of the universe?"

"So now it's your side," Musa protested jokingly. "Anyway, my mother came here when she was younger and I decided that I wanted to come here too. Plus, there's nothing like a change of scenery,"

"Well pardon my surprise, queen bee," Karen answered with sarcasm. "But you know as well as I do that the main reason people of our stature leave our little world of gossip and glamour is because of a scandal. And when I first saw you here I was really hoping nothing too vicious happened."

"Don't worry I'm okay," Musa insisted. "And who would mess with me, I mean come on I am queen bee," Musa said changing her voice a bit to sound like a conceited prick, the kind of girl that seemed to be very prevalent in her world of gossip and glamour, as Karen called it. She was never the type of girl to spread gossip and act like she ran society, but she still became the center of much of the Devon Prepatory social circle.

"But yay! You're here now!" Karen replied happily. "And just in time, it's like fate." Musa looked at Karen with a confused expression when Karen began to elaborate.

"Dance team, we are holding try outs for freshman in a week, but one of the girls can't be on the team this year so we need someone for the dance tomorrow," Karen began. "And we used to be on the Devon dance team together, I know that you can bring a fierce performance,"

Musa laughed. "Thanks, so what's the dance like?"

"It's a hip hop number of course and it's about 4 minutes, all 8 count routines with three major formation changes,"

"Okay, I can definitely get that by tomorrow," Musa said inadvertently sounding cocky.

"Well miss thing, you may need to step up your game," Karen began. "We all wanna look perfect for the boys at Red Fountain, don't we,"

"Not all of us are boy crazy, besides you have a boy friend,"

"So do you, doesn't mean we can't look and appreciate good handy work on god's part. And how is Daniel,"

"He's good, I miss him, but all in all things are good," Musa said as she began to feel her face heat up and her cheeks began to gain some color.

"Aww look at you, you're blushing," Karen said poking fun at Musa. "Well nothing better than falling in love with your best friend, right?" After Karen said that Musa began to question weather she was in love with Daniel, again. She loved him, there was no doubt in her mind about that, but did she love him in a more romantic sense. For her entire life she saw him as her best friend and now she was becoming increasingly confused with her feelings. Was she mistaking feelings of friendship for more than what they were?

After seeing Musa's face go into deep thought, Karen decided to lighten the conversation since it was apparent that the musical princess seemed a bit uncomfortable. "So how do you like the school?"

"It's kinda weird to see everyone being friendly to each other," Musa stated. Where she was from, school was like a jungle. She was a part of the 'ruling class' and they basically set all the social rules of the school, the drama came from the people trying to climb the social ladder and the 'ruling class' obstructing their ascent. Frankly, she was sick of all of it and it was so nice to go a couple days without being filled in on the latest rumors and how to run damage control. "But, it's a nice change,"

"Get used to it, you're no longer a Devon Dragon," Karen assured her. Dragons were the mascot for Devon Prepatory and it seemed to fit the school very well since everyone was a bit vicious. "Alfea Fairies are a lot more welcoming,"

"I'm starting to get that impression,"

"Good, it's going to be an awesome year, I can feel it," Karen said gathering her things. "I have to go, but dance is today at four, I suggest you get there a bit early so you can get used to the dance gym,"

"Okay, I'll see you later," Musa said and walked over to her next class. After her final class of the day Musa headed off to the dance gym in a hurry so she could hopefully pick up the entire dance routine by the next day.

* * *

Finally, after hours of practicing, Musa finally got the dance routine down cold, and decided to head back up to her room and sleep, since it was already pretty late at night. Musa opened the door to the common room and heard nothing and figured that everyone was in their room, so she walked through the dorm quietly when she saw Stella spread out on the couch reading a magazine and watching TV, apparently at the same time.

"Someone is getting in a bit late," Stella said as she looked up from her magazine. Musa looked at Stella, who was lounging on the couch with her hair up in a messy bun, no makeup on and in baggy work out clothes. She was a bit surprised to see Stella looking so; well the best word for the description was frumpy. Musa found that her first impression of Stella was way off mark; she was not the self diluted princess Musa thought she would be. And she was so glad that it turned out that way, Musa was looking forward to getting to know her new roommate, and she honestly seemed like the Magix version of Leslie. "So where were you Miss, get lost in the forest with a Red Fountain boy?"

"I was at dance practice," Musa smiled and let out a laugh and walked putting down her bag and collapsing on the couch next to the Solarian Princess. "God I'm tired, we're performing tomorrow at the dance,"

"You're on the dance team!" Stella squealed happily. "That is like the hardest thing to join at Alfea, how are you in before tryouts,"

"One of the girls dropped out and Karen said that is I could pick up the entire routine by tomorrow then I'm on the team. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be," Musa said laying her head back on the couch and closing her eyes. "Where is everyone?"

"Out cold, me and you are the last ones awake, it's been a tiring day." Stella answered. "But the first day always is,"

"True that," Musa said letting out a heavy sigh. "And I still need to get up early to tweak the dance to make sure I have it down,"

"Then I suggest going to bed," Stella pointed out and then picked up the remote to the TV and shut it off. "I think we could all benefit from some shut eye, we need to be looking our cutest tomorrow,"

Musa nodded and headed off to her room. Musa cracked the door open a bit and quickly slide through the small opening and took a quick shower. She probably would have called Daniel, but about 10 seconds after she hit the sheets, she was asleep.

* * *

The next morning, Musa woke up early, despite her uncontrollable urge to get back in bed and sleep for a couple more hours. But, she needed to make sure she had the dance routine down and she didn't want to end up looking foolish in front of her whole school not to mention the heroes of Red Fountain. She only had one class that day and it was in the late in the morning so she could go practice her dance in the morning and get to class. Then she would have the rest of the day to relax before the dance. Musa walked to the dance gym when she heard her phone ringing in her pocket.

"Hello," Musa asked not knowing who was calling, she had forgotten to check the front screen.

"Hey baby," said Daniel's voice from the phone. "Forgotten about me already?"

"Hey!" Musa said excitedly. "Of coarse not, I've been a bit busy. Guess who I saw?"

"Who?"

"Karen Drayton, I totally forgot that she goes here," Musa answered.

"Oh yeah Karen, she spent the summer there too," Daniel added. "When did you see her?"

"Its such a funny story, turns out she's on the Alfea Dance team and we bumped into each other yesterday. And then we were talking and she needed someone to cover a girl's place that couldn't do a performance and she asked me to take her place!" Musa blurt out excitedly. "And if I do well, then I'm on the team and I don't have to wait to

"That's great!" Daniel exclaimed supportively. "When's the performance?"

"Tonight at the ball," Musa said forgetting that she hadn't talked to Daniel the day before so he didn't know about the ball. Finally, after a pause Daniel spoke up.

"Ball?" Daniel asked with a surprised tone. It was clear from the tone in his voice that he was a bit uncomfortable.

"Umm yeah," Musa began. "It's a back to school thing that the Alfea girls are throwing and we, or well the head mistress, invited…" Musa said quickly hoping that Daniel wouldn't be feeling insecure about the whole thing. She knew that the one thing that bothered Daniel the most about her leaving to go to Magix was that she would be around a bunch of heroes all the time.

"They students at Red Fountain," Daniel finished for her.

"Well, yeah…." Musa said then said nothing. She wasn't quite sure what to say, surely he knew that he had nothing to worry about, but should she tell him that or would that raise suspicions in his head?

"Cool, good luck, I'm sure you'll be great," Daniel said trying not sound like it bothered him, even though it really did. He really wasn't comfortable with his girlfriend being at a ball all alone surrounded by a bunch of strange guys and worst of all she would was on the dance team, meaning she would also be dancing in front of them. Suffice to say there was a twig of jealousy in his voice.

"Daniel you know that you have nothing…" Musa began not sure of what to say.

"I know baby don't worry about it," Daniel said covering the worry in his mind. "Have fun, and just relax about the dance, you'll be fine."

"Thanks," Musa said really relieved that he wasn't feeling threatened. "I was actually pretty a bit worried. The dance is a lot harder than I thought it would be. "

"Come on, you know you're an amazing dancer, almost as good a dancer as you are a singer," Daniel encouraged.

"Thanks, I needed that, Musa said honestly letting out a small laugh. "I'm actually going to practice the dance one last time right now,"

"Okay, well you go, Ill talk to you later," Daniel said. "And if any of those heroes in training try to mess around with you, call me," He said in a mocking tone, but Musa could sense that there was still a hitch in his voice as if he was trying to sound calm.

"You don't need to worry about that, baby," Musa said in a cute voice. "And thanks so much, I'll call you later,"

"Okay bye, have fun," Daniel said.

"Bye," Musa said and hung up the phone as she walked into the dance gym.

She dropped her dance bag on the gym floor and with a heavy sigh Musa walked over to the stereo system and turned on the music. She practiced for the next couple of hours and then went off to class.

* * *

After class, it was early afternoon and Musa walked into her dorm expecting to go to her room and getting in a nap before she had to start getting ready for the dance. But, when she passed by Flora and Bloom's room she noticed that all of the girls were trying on their dresses. She wanted to walk by quickly, since she was tired and didn't feel like changing into her dress, but then she heard Bloom's voice inviting her in. "Hey, Musa let's see your dress,"

Musa smiled decided to hang out with her new friends, it was the least she could do. She didn't want them to feel like she didn't want to be around them and it was nice that she had people that wanted to make an effort to really get to know each other.

"Okay, let me go get it," Musa agreed with a smile even though all she wanted to do was sleep. She walked into her room and over to her wardrobe and pulled out her dress. She quickly changed and walked over to the door and gave one last longing look toward her bed and let out a small whimper. She was really tired! She walked over to Bloom's room in her dress and with a smile on her face asked, "So what do you think?"

"Oh my god! Is that a Gisele Spellera (**2**) original!" Stella screeched when Musa walked in. "I saw that at her show like a week ago, I wanted it so bad, but someone got it already!"

"Oh yeah, my best friend from home was there and she got it for me," Musa said as she walked into the room and took her place against the wall as Stella pulled out her dress. Musa was going to wear a pretty red halter dress that she had, but it was kinda revealing and she didn't feel very comfortable in it, plus who was she trying to impress? She had remembered that Leslie also told her that this was the hottest new look coming down the runway and in some way she felt like she was doing her best friend proud by wearing it to the dance tonight.

"Well, it's really cute, you look awesome in haute couture," Stella complemented and then went over to Bloom's bed where her dress was laying out. "A party is only as good as what you wear to it and this party will be an excellent party, behold an Iwink Wizrahi, I maxed out the credit card daddy gave me, but I had to buy it, it was calling out to me. Buy me, Buy me,"

"It's nice Stella," Musa said. She remembered that Iwink Wizrahi was one of Annabelle and Isabelle's favorite designers. They had actually become one of his VIP's because they spent so much money at his stores and now they were given first preference on his entire line at all of his fashion shows. "And it's so totally you,"

"Yeah, but my ring doesn't go with it," Stella said biting her lower lip. Musa then zoned out for a second, feeling as if she were going to fall asleep from against the wall when Bloom spoke up with her little dilemma.

"I'm worried, Brandon will be there and this is all I have to wear," Bloom said standing up and showing all for the girls her normal outfit. Musa was going to offer Bloom one of her dresses to borrow (**3) **since she had brought a few. But then she looked at Bloom and saw that she probably wouldn't fit in her dresses and before she could offer some advice Stella offered Bloom a solution.

"No friend of mine is going to feel apparel shame, there is a simple solution to any fashion dilemma, shopping," Stella said in a voice full of conviction. Musa couldn't help but roll her eyes at the serious tone that Stella used to describe something so meaningless.

The girls headed back to their rooms to change out of their dresses and then met back in the common room so they could go to Magix to find a dress for Bloom, well every girl with the exception of Musa who had laid down on her bed and was making no attempt to get up. "Musa we're leaving now, come on let's – " Techna began when she saw Musa laying on her bed.

"I'm coming," Musa said with her head in her pillow. Techna laughed and walked out of the room and shouted, 'you have five minutes in counting' right before the door shut.

The girls arrived in Magix with Bloom, who looked like she was worried and Musa could understand why. She didn't know this Brandon that Bloom wanted to impress, but she was willing to help anyway she could. They went to every store in Magix looking for dresses and all of the girls' different style preferences began to show when judging different dresses. Stella was more of a fan of revealing while Musa and Flora liked more subtle dresses.

After going into about the fifteenth store in Magix, the girls exited it and followed Bloom as she made her way to another store she suddenly stopped and turned to her friends.

"You go back," Bloom said after a few hours of searching and no luck. "Go get ready, I meet you guys back at the dorm,"

"You sure Bloom," Flora asked looking at her forlorn friend.

"You can text me if you need me," Stella confirmed. All of the girls headed back to Alfea and let Bloom go and try to find something to wear that night.

The second Musa got back to the dorm, she realized that she had about three hours before she needed to get ready so she opted to sleep instead of practicing the dance, again. Musa figured that if she didn't have it down by now then there was no use in trying to get it by tonight and besides she had been dying to go back to sleep since that morning. Musa walked over to her closet and quickly got out everything she needed for the night and then collapsed into her bed and feel asleep almost immediately.

* * *

A few hours later Musa was jerked awake by Stella running into her room screaming. "MUSA! Please tell me you can sew!" Stella said in near tears when she revealed that her dress had a rip on the back of it from what looked like a heel digging into it and fringing the fabric.

"I uh, I guess I'm okay at sewing," Musa admitted still half in a daze from being awoken so suddenly. She sat up in her bed to see the princess of Solaria now sitting on the ground in her dress holding the part of the dress that was torn as if it were a hurt puppy. "where are Flora, Techna and Bloom," Musa asked through still hooded eyes hoping she could go ask one of them to help her.

"Techna and Flora are at Carrie and Elsie's dorm room," Stella said on the verge of tears. "And Bloom still isn't back,"

Musa looked at Stella and she couldn't help but giggle inwardly, she was ready to have a heart attack over a simple dress, she was sure Stella had others she could wear, but Musa decided to humor her since the wrong word could tip Stella over the edge. "Okay, get me some thread and some scissors, I think I can hem this," Musa said and Stella obeyed obediently. Musa had taken etiquette for years and one of the boring things that was an 'approved' activity was sewing. So she had learned sew, needlepoint, and knit. And even though those times were some of the most boring in her life, they did come in handy at times.

"Okay, I'm done, let's see it," Musa said and Stella stood up and went to the mirror.

"Oh Musa! You fixed it thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" She said over and over again.

"No biggy, but be careful this time, I don't think this dress can take another heel trying to stab it," Musa joked Stella simply nodded excitedly and scurried out of the room so that Musa could get changed into her party outfit.

The ball began with all of the Alfea girls entering the ballroom after all the boys had, it was as if they were making a special entrance for them, well actually, they were. Musa looked at all the guys as she walked into the ballroom and admitted to herself that some of them were really cute. Just then, she saw one specific specialist with magenta hair leaning up against the wall with a scowl on his face. Usually such attitude would repel any interest Musa could have had, this guy was kinda hot. And as Karen had said the day before she didn't have to feel guilty about 'appreciating good handy work on god's part.'

With that thought in mind, Musa continued to look at him until she almost bumped into Stella who was walking in front of her. She quickly corrected herself and gave one last look over to the not-so-happy specialist when her eyes met his. He was looking at her too! He had the most intriguing violet eyes she have seen and there was something about him that made Musa want to know more, it was weird but she never felt like this before. She had been courted by and flirted with many guys before, but this feeling was so different. Musa's heart began to race and quickly turned back around not knowing what else to do. This time she didn't dare look back over to him, but she didn't stop thinking about him and wondering if he was still looking over to her. And he was.

"Hey you have 10 minutes to mingle and then get to that backroom to change and we'll be performing in about 15 minutes," Karen said rather quickly from behind Musa, pulling her out of her day dream about her mysterious magenta haired specialist.

"Oh um yeah, okay I'll be there in 10 minutes," Musa said trying to hid the flustered look on her face. Unfortunately, for her, Karen had known her for awhile and she saw something about her that was a bit off.

"What's up Musa?" she asked suspiciously.

"Nothing, I'm just getting a little nervous,"

"Oh okay," Karen accepted not really believing her for a second. But, she could get the truth out of her later, for now she was already pretty nervous herself about the dance team's first performance of the year. "Go to that room back there, your outfit for the dance is waiting and we have about 10 minutes to get ready so be quick," Karen finished and then quickly walked off to join the rest of her other friends, leaving Musa with her new group.

After all of the girls were in the ballroom, everyone dispersed into their little groups of friends and the ballroom strangely resembled that of one for a 6th grade dance. The boys seemed to be on one side with the girls on the other. Granted there were some exceptions, mainly by the older students from both school, but the majority were separated. Musa and her little group stood around and chatted for a few minutes until Musa realized that she needed to get changed. "Okay guys I have to go get ready,"

"Okay bye Musa," the girls said and while she was walking away she heard a certain princess of Solaria yell. "Good Luck!!" Musa turned back around and smiled and then walked into the changing room.

"Attention students," said Ms. Faragonda to the crowd of students. Everyone quieted down except the seniors, who pretty much ran their respective schools. When they finally quieted, Ms. Faragonda continued. "As many of you may know, the Alfea Dance Team performs at every social event between our schools. So once again this year, our dance team will display their talents with a dance number. Please help me in welcoming our dance team girls,"

With that the room went dark as the initial clapping died down and Musa and the rest of the Alfea dance team walked onto the dance floor. She stood, looking to the floor, in her starting position with her heart almost beating out of her chest. She was never they type of person to get too nervous before a performance, but this time she was pretty on edge. Maybe it was because it was in front of her new classmates, but she knew she why she was feeling this way, but she refused to accept it. She refused to accept that she wanted to perform well in the hopes that she would impress the guy that she had a very brief moment with, if you could even call it that.

The music began and everything fell into place. Musa hit every move to perfection and every single formation and stunt she did was to the tee and everyone was impressed with the team's performance. Musa moved to her final spot on the dance floor and followed the music into her last step and hit it hard and dramatic, and then went right into her ending pose. The music stopped and she looked out into the crowd and managed to make eye contact with him once again. She looked at him, still breathing heavy, and gave a the sexiest smile she could muster. Everyone always told her that she looked very 'come hither' at the end of a dance performance, so she figured she would use it to her advantage. He gave the same indifferent look, but they continued their eye contact until the spotlight faded and the lights came back on and Musa heard her name being called.

"Musa you were amazing!" Stella said running up to the princess.

"That was so good, you're such a great dancer," Flora complimented.

"Yes it was very good," Techna added.

"Thanks so much you guys," Musa said a bit flustered, partially because she was just dancing and mostly because of the guy she kept seeing. Musa looked over her shoulder and saw Karen talking to some other girls and she figured she could take this opportunity thank her for helping her out. "Hey let me catch up to you in a second, I want to go thank Karen for letting me perform. And I really need to change back into my dress," The girls nodded and Musa began to make her way back to the back room.

Once in the room, Musa approached Karen when Karen noticed Musa coming to her and smiled. "Damn Musa," Karen said proudly. "I forgot how great of a dancer you were, welcome to the Alfea Dance team," she said with a big smile as Musa looked at her with a little disbelief in her eyes.

"Really!?" Musa almost screamed.

"Of course! You would have to be crazy to not put you on the team, we actually want you to sit in on the try outs as well, to see who we should put into the team," Karen said fixing up her hair and getting ready to walk back out to the party. On her way out she made one last comment that she thought would make Musa smile, "If only Daniel saw you dancing like that, he'd be all over you in a second,"

Karen walked out of the room leaving Musa feel guilty more than anything. For the past hour or so she had completely forgotten about Daniel. And what was worse was that she was constantly looking at or thinking about that guy. _I didn't do anything, we looked at each other and that's it. It was nothing, we looked at each other, we didn't even talk. Its no big deal_. Musa told herself over and over again trying to push away the feelings of guilt that were welling up inside her.

She slipped her dress back on and was ready to walk back outside and tried not to think about what was making her feel so bad, but she couldn't help it. What made things worse was that she knew that Daniel felt a bit threatened by the possibility of her finding someone here. But, Musa didn't want anyone else, and this guy was just some random person that she would probably never see again, so why did it matter? She was with Daniel for a reason, they were so great together and she did have genuine feelings for him. This brief lapse in judgment meant nothing, _nothing even happened! Snap out of it! _Musa managed to convince herself that the guy she kept looking at was nothing and that the feelings that welled up inside her were nothing as well.

"So, guess what," Musa said walking up to Stella, Flora and Techna excitedly. "Wait where's Bloom?"

"I have no idea," Techna said looking around the ballroom. "I'm sure she'll be here soon, so what's your news,"

"Oh, I am officially on the dance team," Musa said excitedly.

"Wow that's so great, way to go," Flora said and Techna nodded.

"That is so perfect, you were really great out there," Stella commended. "And now that your on the dance team, your in a totally in with all of the Alfea seniors."

"Thanks," Musa said unable to contain her smile. She was thinking back to a few days ago when she was leaving home. It seemed like forever ago, and even though she had spoke to all of her old friends at least once a day, they seemed like a part of her _old_ life. She really felt as if she had created a whole new world her in Magix and she felt so silly about being so worried about coming here, even if it were completely justified.

"Hey girls," Bloom said drawing the attention of their little circle. She looked worried and a bit flushed when she walked up. Musa then noticed that she had yet to change into a dress, maybe she hadn't found one when she went off on her own in Magix.

"Bloom, what too you so long," Techna asked as she walked up to them.

"What's the matter?" Flora asked when she saw the worried look on Bloom's face.

"Umm, well I don't want to get everyone in here freaked out, so lets talk out in the hallway," Bloom said still not dropping the worried look. Musa and the rest of the girls nodded and followed Bloom into the hallway and listened to what she had to say.

"The witches are here," Bloom began. "They have a whole plan to sabotage the dance,

"Ugh," Stella said with an exasperated sigh. "What are they gonna do?"

"I heard them casting some freaky spell on the gifts the boys are gonna give us," Bloom answered with a worried look on her face. Musa was more then surprised to find out that the same witches that they had fought with before were coming back for revenge. When she went to Devon Prep there were no real rivalries with other schools, most of the drama took place inside the Devon walls. Even though she was a little nervous to think about what the witches might do, she was still intrigued by the situation. "It had something to do with a snake rat," she finished sounding a little unsure of the last thing she said.

"A snake rat?" Techna questioned looking upward and rubbing her chin as if in deep thought. "Let me consult my database, snake rat," Techna began again. "Venomous swamp creatures that can cause projectile vomiting with one bite, gross," She finished with disgust.

"Eww," Stella said with a cringe. "I know why they're doing this, those witches are so jealous of us, they wish they had a chance with the Red Fountain boys," Stella said with superiority and annoyance in her voice. Musa thought for a second about why the witches were here, it surely couldn't be about the Red Fountain boys, they didn't seem like the kind of girls that like guys that followed the rules. Musa was about to ask, but Bloom began talking again ready to answer Stella's question.

"Well actually the witches are not after the boys at all," Bloom said still in the same serious voice. Musa nodded when Bloom basically proved her assumption. "What they're after is your ring, Stella, we have to so something,"

Musa began putting things together in her mind at that moment. She knew she heard one of the witches ask for Stella when they fought them in Magix, and since they obviously didn't get what they wanted that night, they were back again. And now she finally knew why they were after Stella, they wanted her ring. Musa thought for a few seconds and then though of what they could do. "It's cool, we can handle it, we'll just go back to the dorm and get the ring right now,"

"Its too late, look," Flora said pointing out two Red Fountain students that were bringing a huge chest into the center of the room.

"No snake rats," Musa said after a brown haired boy opened the chest. Maybe the witches conjured a dud, they didn't look like the brightest crayons in the box when they had their run in with witches.

"Well the spell said that they'd hatch from inside the eggs," Bloom pointed out.

"We need a counter spell and fast," Stella said. "Come on lets form a circle," The girls did as Stella commanded and made a circle, hand in hand. "Focus your winx, now let's link our powers together." (**4**)

"Let all the dark magic be reversed, make the eggs like they were before they were cursed," They all said together. Finally, at the end of the chant Musa could feel her magic coursing through her and when she opened her eyes she noticed a small glow over all the eggs that vanished a second after she blinked again.

"Spells are exhausting," Stella said with a heavy sigh as she knelt over and rested her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath. Musa then saw the same brown haired student walk over to Stella and hand her an egg. Musa looked at him and wondered if he was Prince Sky, probably since he was gushing all over Stella, but Musa thought that he would look different, when she gave it some thought, she really thought she met him before at a ball that Daniel's father had thrown.

"Let me see it, Flora remember that Tundra spell from teen fairy," Musa asked taking the egg that the may-be- Sky gave to Stella.

"Yeah, sure do, I can use it to give those witches a taste of their own medicine, it will turn the thing they covet into the thing they hate," Flora said almost getting malicious smile.

"Alright, go for it," Musa then looked back over to the guy near Stella again who looked like he had just tried to comprehend advanced nuclear fission and its connection to neural impulses in the corpus collasum (**5**).

Musa simply let it go and walked back into the ballroom as Bloom went and changed into her dress. She went over to talk to Karen and some of the other girls from the dance team that she had become friends with. After a couple of minutes she saw the rest of the girls walk back into the ballroom and she excused herself to go back to talk to them.

* * *

"A prince just asked me to dance!" Flora said excitedly as the group reassembled.

They got into another clump when Griselda and Faragonda walked over to them. Miss Faragonda had a huge smile on her face while Griselda had the same cross look that she always had. "Young ladies, we just had a great idea, Princess Musa should perform a hip hop number for out guests,"

"Okay…that would be alright if you really want me to," Musa said even though she didn't have anything prepared. Musa was a little surprise that Faragonda wanted her to perform a hip hop number. She had always been told by her aunt, grandmother and many other people to only perform the classics and that modern hip hop was vulgar and unlady like, but Musa loved it the most. Besides, she did love to sing and maybe singing, something that always seemed to relax her, would help to get her mind off of the guy she kept thinking about.

"Well, seeing you sing might be some fun," Stella teased when she saw the nervous look on Musa's face.

"Well if your half as good at singing as you are at dancing," Flora said with a smile trying to make Musa less nervous.

"Well, I need some sheet music so I can quickly rehearse a song," Musa said allowed.

"Just do one you know, and something we can dance to if it's not too much to ask," Stella said with a grin. Musa figured Stella wanted to get some more time in with Prince Sky, someone Musa had yet to officially meet.

"Okay, I know a lot of songs by heart," Musa said to herself and her friends. "Okay let me go get ready and can you guys tell Miss Faragonda that I just need five minutes,"

The girls nodded and walked away and Musa went toward the stage that was in the ballroom, the dance team would have used it, but their dance required more space then the small stage could offer. After a few minutes of Musa listening to her ipod and playing the song over and over again, Musa got the hang of it and figured she would sing and do a few hip swivels and that's about it to keep both the crowd and herself engaged in the song, besides it was hard not to move your hips to a hip hop number.

"Attention all, we have another treat for you this evening. A member of our new freshman class whom you just saw perform with the Alfea Dance team is the lovely Princess Musa Dannington. And now she had agreed to grace us with a song, so please enjoy," Miss Faragonda said announcing Musa again.

Musa got on stage and waited for the music to begin and when it did, it was like all the worries washed away and all she could do was sing. _"I've been looking for a driver's whose qualified so if you think you're the one then step into my ride. I'm a fine-tuned supersonic speed machine with a sunroof top and gangster lean…"_

She made her way across the stage when she noticed a certain face in the crowd, well not _in _the crowd; he was up against a wall, again. But, Musa now knew those eyes anywhere. It was him! "_You look like you could handle what's under my hood, you keep saying that you will boy I wish you would_," Musa kept singing on and she could feel something amazing every time she looked at him or when she saw him looking at her and the few times that they made eye contact, that sent electricity through her.

Finally, her performance ended and when she looked up he was no longer there. She couldn't help but feel her heart and hopes fall slightly when she didn't see him there and at this point, Daniel was the last person on her mind.

After Musa finished her performance she bowed after the applauded and then walked over to her friends, on the way there many people came up to her to complement her on her abilities as a dancer and a singer. Finally she got to her friends that were standing in a way similar to the way they were before, except they were standing with whom Musa still assumed was Prince Sky. "Musa that was great," Flora said.

"Oh Musa, this is Sky," Stella said excitedly. She was standing next to the guy she had been crushing on for awhile, Stella had told them it was Prince Sky of Eraklyon, and Musa could have sworn that she had met him once, but this wasn't him.

"Nice to meet you," Sky said warmly.

"Yeah, nice to meet you too," Musa said back politely still looking at him closely wondering why she thought he looked familiar, yet not who she thought. "Have I met you before, I swear I have, you look so familiar,"

"Umm, no I'm sorry I don't think we have," Sky said looking very nervous, which made Musa a bit suspicious. "Wow that was a great performance," Sky said with a smile that made Stella melt being sure to quickly change the subject. "Both performances were great," he quickly corrected himself after he realized Musa had been on the dance team performance as well.

"Thanks so much," Musa said beaming, everyone had complemented her on the performances and now that she was a part of the dance team so she was having an awesome night.

"Oh and this is my friend Brandon and this is Timmy," Sky said introducing the two as they walked up to the small group. The blonde on did look familiar, oddly, but Musa made nothing of it since she was wrong about Sky. (**6**) "And Riven was with us, but he's probably somewhere getting himself in trouble,"

Timmy and Brandon laughed while the girls stood their confused and then Brandon brought the conversation back to something they would probably be able to talk about.

"You were really good," Brandon complimented and Musa, again took it as graciously as she had before.

The group talked for a bit and got to know each other and then Brandon walked away claiming he wanted to say hi to someone, but only Sky and Timmy knew that he was really doing, looking for Bloom.

"Hey where's Bloom?" Musa asked wondering if she caught either of her performances.

"I have no idea, she was just here," Stella answered.

"Better find her, Brandon has been asking for her," Sky said with his arm now around Stella.

"She might still be getting ready, we should go find her," Techna insisted. The girls nodded and Stella reluctantly pulled away from Sky and followed Musa and Techna and Flora.

When the four walked out of the ballroom, they were heading toward the dorm area when they saw Bloom on the grass outside the ballroom.

* * *

"Bloom where were you," Flora asked as she and the rest of the group walked up to the fairy that was still in her normal clothes. Bloom explained to the girls about how she was attacked and tried to save Stella's ring, but failed. And then, after explaining to her how Flora's spell of the month from Teen Fairy worked, the girls headed back in and waited for Bloom to finally make her entrance to the party, since she had been in and out all night and it looked like Brandon was getting a bit restless.

"So gimme the scoop you guys, what did I miss?" Bloom asked when she finally got back into the ballroom. The girls filled her in on everything and they danced the rest of the night away.

* * *

The ball was a huge success; she had a lot of fun with her friends. She walked over to her bed gratefully, since it was where she really wanted to be all day and collapsed into it. Musa closed her eyes and fell asleep, still unable to get those piecing violet eyes out of her head.

* * *

_1.Let's just say there was a tree there_

_2 I dunno sounds cool_

_3. I don't know why they didn't do that. I mean they all look the same freaking size!. _

_4. This is a lot like power convergence…no? _

_5. I would love to know if the two are related, although I doubt it. The corpus collasum is the tissue that connects the hemispheres of the brain btw. Women have larger ones which is why we tend to be better multi taskers_

_6. I'm sorry but I refuse to believed that with so many royal in one place that they all haven't met at some royal party before. So Musa has a suspicion that she casts aside. _

_I threw in some MxR! I love it and next chapter is when the two lovebirds meet!_

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	4. The Voice of Nature

_Okay so here is the day when Musa meets Riven! Conflicted feelings…?_

**The Voice of Nature**

_I look like a park ranger._ Musa thought as she looked herself over in the mirror in her new uniform for her field study. She was in a class taught by Professor Palladium and he said that the girls would be taking a 'field test' and that they needed to dress appropriately since the year before a girl slipped and the miniskirt she was wearing flew up while her halter top fell down. After that the school decided that it would be best if the girls had appropriate attire for these 'field studies'.

Musa really didn't care what she wore, but she knew that Leslie would probably rolling on the floor ready to bust with laughter if she ever saw her in something so well, ridiculous. Although, Musa did think her legs looked kinda nice in them, and she thought of how much Daniel loved it when she wore skirt. "Shit Daniel!" She yelled to herself.

Musa looked frantically around her room for her phone when she realized that it had been two days since she had talked to Daniel. After she talked to him before the dance, she had been preoccupied and completely forgot about calling him. Throwing around her bedding, Musa finally came across the phone and checked for missed calls.

None.

It had been two days and for as long as she could remember she and Daniel couldn't go more than 8 hours without talking to each other. Why hadn't he called? But of coarse, she could have asked the same question of herself. She wasn't so busy that she couldn't take 20 minutes out of her scheduled to call her boyfriend. But in all honesty, Musa hadn't even thought about him since the day of the dance. It was like she had forgotten that he existed after that night and it wasn't until just now that she remembered. Not even when she talked to Nate this morning, or Isabelle last night. Musa knew why she wasn't thinking of her boyfriend when she should have been, but she wasn't ready to admit the fact that she had let herself get swept away by something as little as a few glances and little moments she had with some Red Fountain guy.

Trying not to feel anymore guilty than she already did, Musa opened her phone and hit Daniel's number, hoping he wouldn't notice that they hadn't talked in a long time.

"Hello?"

"Hey" Musa said in a sweet voice feeling a sudden burst of excitement. Just hearing his voice was enough to make her feel a little better about what was going on.

"You sound familiar," Daniel joked. "But, I just can't seem to remember your name,"

"Funny," Musa said wryly. "What's up?"

"Not much, just getting to class," Daniel said and as Musa listened closer she could hear the hustle and bustle of her old prep school. "How was the dance?"

"Great!" Musa said excitedly trying to focus on the parts Daniel would want to know about. She didn't think she should tell him about the guy she couldn't stop thinking about. And then, feeling a stab of guilt in her gut, Musa felt as if she needed to apologize for not calling him "The dance went great, sorry for not calling,"

"It's okay baby," Daniel said knowing his girlfriend was probably feeling guilty for not calling. "Just glad to know that those Red Fountain guys only made you forget about me temporarily," Daniel finished in a joking manner. He truly meant that as a joke, even though he still felt insecure about the whole thing, he never expected that his words would get twisted into something ugly, and certainly didn't expect what came next.

"Well, you could have called," Musa demanded getting a bit angry for no reason.

"What?" Daniel questioned with obvious confusion in his voice. "I figured you were busy, I mean it's only been like a week since you've been there,"

"Well, don't blame me for not calling when you didn't make the effort yourself," She snapped becoming angry and not really knowing why. It was as if she were trying to pick a fight with him.

"I wasn't blaming you!" Daniel said finally giving up and letting his frustration become evident in his voice. "I was joking Musa,"

"It didn't sound like it," she mumbled into the phone, now clearly upset.

"Well it was and if I didn't know any better, it sounds like someone has a guilty conscious," Daniel stated. He knew Musa, probably better than anyone and he knew that she was not the type to get emotional or angry for no reason. Sure she did overreact now and then, but not about something as stupid as a phone call or a joke. That was why a red flag when off in his head. It was almost as if she was defending herself from something she felt guilty about, all he had implied was that she had forgotten him, but it was in a joking manner and it came from a loving place. So why did she get so defensive over nothing?

"Excuse me!" Musa yelled into her phone deeply offended not realizing that she did indeed have a guilty conscious. She didn't realize, but she was harboring some guilt for dreaming about the guy she saw at the dance a couple of nights ago. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I was making a joke Musa, a joke," Daniel said to the comment he made earlier. "And not once since I've known you have you ever gotten so defensive about a joke. Well, not unless you felt you needed to defend yourself, almost as if you had something wrong,"

"Are you accusing me of –,"

"No," Daniel stated in a calmer voice. "But the fact that you feel the need to defend yourself when there was no accusation, says something. And the fact that you and I haven't talked in two days, when the longest we used to go was a couple of hours, says something else,"

Overcome with anger and guilt after hearing Daniel's testimony and the pain in his voice, Musa hung up on him and threw the phone to the other side of the room. What was going on? Was she really letting some random person mess up a lifelong relationship? She and Daniel had been in minor spats before, but Musa had never heard that tone in his voice. He seemed upset and hurt about the argument she clearly started, all she could hope was he didn't know why.

But one thing managed to stick in her mind about what he said. Musa knew that the reason that she picked that fight was because of her own issues, but it had only been a week since she got here and already she and Daniel were having problems. This whole long distance thing was not going to be easy by any means, but she needed to make sure that they didn't drift apart. And yet, I the back of her mind, she was thinking about him.

After a few minutes of sitting on her bed and recalling the argument point by point in her mind, Musa heard someone walk into her room. She looked up to see Techna grabbing some stuff in a hurry. "Musa, aren't you finished yet?" she said regarding her roommate's lack of readiness for the felid test that she and all of the other girls would be going on today. "We have to be down in the quad in like 5 minutes,"

"Oh yeah, let me just grab my phone," Musa said trying to shake off the emotions that were stirred up from her argument with Daniel.

"Are you alright?" Asked Techna with a concerned look on her face, she looked a bit flustered for some reason.

"Yeah, fine"

"Okay, well than I will be in the quad, get down their ASAP," Techna instructed with some urgency. Musa nodded dutifully and got up off her bed and began to look for her phone that she had chucked into the corner. Finally, after a few moments of throwing around a couple of CD's and some other things, she found her cell phone lying on the ground. She picked it up and put it in her pocket.

There was no use in opening it, Daniel wasn't calling back anytime soon.

* * *

Black mud swamp was everything the name said it would be. It was damp and there were bugs flying around everywhere and the mud was a horrible dark color. And of coarse the unmistakable smell of methane and other swamp gasses that made the place even more repulsive. Not that Musa minded too much, she had always been a fan of the outdoor, not so much so that she spent her time camping, but she loved riding her thoroughbreds back at her castle, or going surfing or something fun like that. But, a swamp wasn't exactly her idea of fun. Not that she was going to be a complaining the whole time, but she had been at dance practice for hours the night before and now she was up early so she could hike around an swamp.

"Now this felid exercise is designed to test your natural ability to listen to the always present voice of nature, each group must navigate their way through black mud swamp and find the crystal clearing. And here is the catch, you may not use any magic, only the voice of nature will be your guide, and remember. It's not enough to hear the voice; you must listen to it as well." Explained professor Palladium. Then with a blink of an eye, he managed to transport himself away with a puff of magic.

"No reason to stand around her and gab, let's start looking," Flora suggested after all the girls exchanged bewildered glances. They all nodded and began on their way to finding the crystal clearing and finished the assignment, it was clear none of them wanted to be in the swamp.

Musa tried to clear her mind of the argument she just had with Daniel, but it was still so fresh in her mind, all she could think of was how much she wanted to call him back and apologize, but her pride wouldn't let her. Besides he did imply that she had done something to betray him, and technically, Musa didn't _do_ anything, she simply looked at a person. She was certainly allowed to do that. (**1**)

Being so lost in her own thoughts, Musa hadn't realized that she was mindlessly following her friends into a gross mud filled swamp. Finally, when her feet trudged through the viscous mud, Musa snapped out of her previous thoughts and focused back on the problem at hand, getting out of this swamp and maybe getting some peace from Stella's complaining.

"What happened to 'Mud does such wonders to my compaction?' " Musa mocked after Stella finished her bitching and moaning. When she first met Stella, she honestly thought she would be the hardest to get along with, but now she was seeing that Stella was a really great person. Maybe a bit annoying and spoiled, but nothing she wasn't used to from back home. Stella simply gave her a hard look and they all continued on until something stopped them.

Musa stood and listened as she friends began to ponder what was beneath their feet and just as Techna was about to use her magic to Bloom was there, and she stopped her.

"Just use your senses" Bloom said in al calm voice telling the girls to use the voice of nature instead of their magic, and then all the girls took a deep breath.

"Smells like old socks" Stella said not concentrating on the surroundings.

That was when it came to Musa, the smell of the swamp had to be coming from somewhere, and in a swamp that was usually gas. "It's some kind of gas, let's go!" Musa said in a rush as all the girls tried to escape the thick mud as fast as they could. Finally, the entire group was out of the swamp.

Then, attempting to find out what was causing the interruption in their field study, Bloom threw a small part of a log at the large mud bubble and it popped releasing a gray gas that came shouting into the air ominously.

"It's medusal gas," Flora said after examining the look of the gas and it's effect on a neighboring tree. "It would have turned us to stone," Musa took a great big sigh of relief when she found out that they had escaped near tragedy. Not all the girls were taking the escape too well, Techna was being a bit hard on herself for not being on top of things, fortunately Bloom, who was shaping up to be the most empathetic of the group, next to Flora, comforted her.

"Look that tree turned to stone," Flora said and turned the girls' attention to a stone tree. It was crazy in Musa's mind since she had never been in a swamp before, let alone seeing mere gas turn a tree to stone.

"Talk about being statuesque" Stella joked as the girls continued on their way through the swamp.

"So you girls never dished about the guys you were with during the dance," Stella said as the girls walked through the growth of the forest.

"I danced with a prince," Flora said excitedly. "He was nice, but he comes from an industrial realm and something about him didn't seem quite right,"

"How about you Bloom," Stella continued. Musa had noticed that Stella spent most of the night flirting with Prince Sky and when she wasn't with him she was meeting up with her friends to fill them in on all the happenings of her relationship with Sky. Musa on the other hand spent most of the night with Flora, since after she danced with the prince; she decided to fly solo for the rest of the night. That night, it wasn't like Musa was pining away for Daniel, hell she couldn't stop thinking about the guy she kept seeing, but she was so excited about nailing both performances that she was on a high and it seemed like she had finally come off of it this morning.

"Well Sky and I were flirting for awhile," Stella said proudly as Musa zoned back into the conversation. "Oh and Musa you looked great up there dancing, I'm sure you caught a few Red Fountain eyes,"

"I doubt that," Musa said with a slight blush. "But thanks, but I never thought dance team would be so difficult," Musa said trying to covertly change the subject when she felt a stab of guilt when she thought about that guy and about the argument she had with Daniel.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Stella said changing the subject back to a conversation she wanted to have. "I mean come on, there had to be someone you liked at the dance,"

Musa, who was now only thinking about the guy, was trying to figure out how to answer. Telling the girls she had a boyfriend completely slipped her mind, like it had since she had met them.

Then, as if saving her from answering the question, Bloom pointed to the sky and yelled. "Check it out!" Bloom said pointing up to the sky as the girls looked up. "A Red Fountain craft!" the girls watched in horror for a second as the spacecraft fell from the sky. It is smoking and falling to the ground with the heroes inside falling to their doom.

"Hurry they might need help," Bloom continued after a second of initial shock. They run over to the proximity in which they saw the ship fall. Finally when they got to the clearing where the ship landed, or crashed, the girls saw some figures get out of the ship.

* * *

"Look who it is!" Stella said happily when she caught to eye of the Prince of Eraklyon.

"You guys okay?" Flora asked sweetly, but by the looks of it all the guys were fine, just a little embarrassed.

"We saw your plane crash," Techna noted as she glanced over to Timmy.

"Hey girls," Brandon said nervously as he fidgeted with his fingers. "Guys, these are the girls from Alfea, Techna, Bloom, Stella, and Flora. Girls, this is –," Brandon said trying to maybe change the subject away from the fact that they had just majorly screwed up.

Musa looked over the guys and realized that they were the same ones that she had met at the dance. Sky, Brandon and Timmy and there was one more. "It wasn't a crash, it was an emergency landing," Interrupted the last specialist with magenta hair and what seemed like a perma-scowl on his face.

'Oh my god!' Musa thought to herself. 'It's him!' Musa looked over to Riven, even though he had yet to notice her presence in front of him, she felt completely different then she did all day. She felt her heart flutter and her palms get sweaty. This was the exact guy that was looking at her at the dance, and the one she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of. The thought of Daniel that he existed was completely wiped from Musa's memory. All she could think about was this guy, he was friends with Sky and Brandon and Musa felt herself get a bit excited at the possibility that she might be seeing him some more.

Finally, after he finished making an excuse as to why their ship had crashed, or made and emergency landing, he looked over to her. Musa caught his glance and the two seemed to stare at each other for a few seconds, and luckily for the both of them, none of their friends managed to catch them in the act. Riven, who was still sporting a scowl on his face managed to change it a bit and he looked more like he was intrigued and a bit taken a back at the same time. Musa on the other hand smiled a foolish smile and unconsciously bit down on her finger, not realizing how innocent and appealing she looked when she did it. She did however; notice the look on his face afterward.

Maybe she was wrong, but it looked like she wasn't the only one feeling an attraction. Musa was quickly snapped out of her thought about her hero when she heard a panicked outcry from Prince Sky.

"The troll got away," yelled Prince Sky as he looked over to the other end of the swamp and saw footprints leading into the swamp.

With that there was a sudden outburst of talking by the girls who all seemed pretty concerned with the fact that the heroes had let a troll escape into the relatively safe swamp. Well, not safe swamp, but it was a hell of a lot more dangerous now that there was a troll running around.

We didn't let anything escape," Riven excused again. "We had an accident. The ship malfunctioned."

"Mechanical failure," Timmy agreed. There was no need to go into finger pointing now.

And then, as if there situation couldn't get to worse, Musa and the rest of the girls heard Prince Sky yell that the shackles came loose.

"They came loose?" Al the girls nearly shouted in unison. Musa looked at the guys and it looked like they all felt a bit embarrassed since they crashed a ship and now the girls that they were courting were there. She couldn't help but feel bad for Brandon and Sky and even Timmy, since he was getting rather cozy with Techna at the dance.

"What are you girls doing here anyway?" Brandon asked the girls as if he was trying to change the subject. Musa felt bad for him, she really did, it was obvious at the dance that he was trying to impress Bloom and now he looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.

"A field exercise for nature class," Bloom answered almost flirtatiously.

"So then get back to your little exercise girl and leave this problem to the specialists," Said Musa's mystery man, who kind of put her off by the comment.

"And when are the specialists going to get here?" Stella asked Riven in response to his chauvinistic order. She said it in a mocking and sweet way to make sure that he knew that she was mocking him, and by the look on his face, her hit her mark.

"Oh snap!" Musa said out of the blue. He looked up at Musa and dropped the glare he had toward Stella and after a second her had his scowl back. Musa was a bit amused by him in his mysteriousness, he was new and unfamiliar. Not to mention he had the killer bad boy thing going on. Every good girls wants a bad boy, the saying never had more truth to it.

Musa wasn't sure if this guy was going to say anything back to Stella, but she had a feeling from the angered look on his face, that he wasn't going to let this one go. "Listen you privileged little princess –"

"What Riven wants to say is that it might be best if you just leave to troll to us and get back to your class assignment," Sky interrupted before Riven could finish the sentence. Musa could only guess that it was because what Riven was about to say was not exactly PG. But one thing she did pull from the comment was that his name was 'Riven' and if she remembered correctly, it was the guy that Brandon mentioned at the dance. It was crazy how things happened like that.

"I can tell her to bug off myself," Riven nearly snarled with obvious agitation etched all over his face.

"But what if the troll runs into the other girls from our class?" Techna asked all the specialists with a genuine look of concern on her face.

"Just stay out of our way so we can take care of it, you go it?" Riven said shortly answering for all of his friends. "Come on guys, let's go. Let's not waste any more time here."

With that, the specialists all shrugged and went along on their way, leaving the girls standing alone. Even though Riven acted like a royal ass in their first official encounter, Musa was still so enthralled by him. She could just tell that there was more to him than what met the eye. There was no way that he acted like an ass for the hell of it, if he did then he wouldn't have such great friends. Musa had only known the boys for a few days, but she did like them, they seemed like genuinely nice guys and if they were friends with Riven, then Riven had to have some good qualities. And the musical fairy was no determined to find them.

"Maybe we should go along with them," Bloom suggested.

"You mean after the crummy tude Riven gave us?" Stella questioned

"Yeah he was rude, I say we get back to our assignment and let Riven deal with it," Flora said getting a bit of attitude, more so than Musa had ever heard come from her mouth.

"Flora's right Bloom, if Riven wants to get eaten. I say bon appetite, right?" Stella said with a bit iciness in her voice. Musa said nothing during their rag session on Riven because she felt like she wanted to defend him, not that he deserved it, but still.

"That's not quite what I said, but –," Flora said trying to correct herself for her uncharacteristically cold comment.

"Something strange here, did you guys notice the hole in the ship," Techna said changing to subject, much to Musa's relief since she didn't want to hear he friends talk about Riven anymore. "The burn marks outlining the perimeter indicated that the hole was created outside the ship while it was still in flight."

"So you mean somebody shot down the ship?" Flora inquired.

"Yes, it looks that way." Techna continued as they looked at the ship after the guys left.

"If that's so I guess we should investigate," Flora suggested. Right after she finished Musa let out a loud groan of frustration.

"If I ever say, hey lets go hang out in a swamp, remind me that I really hate swamps," Musa said sarcastically as she lagged a bit behind from the group. She swung her arms in front of her and walked like a child that was just denied candy.

* * *

The girls continued on their way following the footprints that the troll left when all of the sudden, they stopped. At first Bloom and Musa looked around the swamp to see if maybe the ogre jumped, but no such luck. "They totally disappeared up ahead, he found a way to level walk to shake up our follow," Musa said as she knelt down to look at the footprint closely, while Stella yammered on and on about the most random things, like what size shoes a troll would have. Bloom nodded and Flora thought about what could have happened.

"The troll must have cast a spell," She reasoned logically, thinking

"Except trolls can't do that," Techna pointed out

"Which means someone else is in the swamp," Bloom finished.

"Some who might be watching us," Techna pointed out in a cautious tone. As if this day hadn't been weird enough, Musa had to skulk through a swamp, then she saw Riven again and now she was searching for a troll and whoever let him loose.

"How are we supposed to find him with out the foot prints?" Flora pointed out

"Yeah, we can't just call out here trolly trolly trolly," Musa said as she made her way through the thick mud. It seemed like a day wasn't a day without having to find some source of evil or wrongdoing, not that she minded, it was pretty exciting.

"Maybe the voice of nature can give us a clue," Bloom said excitedly. It was clear that she was excited to be using her powers.

"Yeah, the voice of nature," Flora agreed confident with that they could figure this out.

"What do you mean voice, I can't hear a thing," Techna pointed out a little frustrated with herself for not being able to hear this voice of nature. She wasn't the only one though, Musa who was supposed to have super hearing because she was the princess of a musical realm, wasn't able to hear the voice either. As she and the girls looked around the swamp and concentrated on nature, they all tried to hear some type of signal from nature. Unfortunately, most of the girls came up short.

"He went that way through the thicket," Bloom said confidently pointing to an ominous part of the swamp that, by the look on everyone's face, nobody wanted to go in.

"Are you sure about that," Stella asked in a very skeptical and scared tone.

"I know it looks all creepy in there, but something is telling me that's the right way," Bloom insisted. But, Musa and the rest of the girls still weren't convinced.

"Yeah" Flora said in agreement. "I feel it too, I'm getting a strong vibe," Finally, the other three gave into Bloom and Flora and reluctantly agreed.

"Okay, let's go guys," Bloom encouraged as the girls began to follow her. Musa then groaned loudly and continued to follow her friends. She began to think about everything was going on, she began to realize that Daniel seemed to slip her mind every time she saw Riven, or he was brought up. She had known him, officially anyway, for about a couple hours, and already she getting giddy whenever she caught a glance of him. And when he looked at her, it was even better. She was supposed to be having these kinds of feelings for Daniel and now she was feeling something weird for Riven. She hated today.

And what made it worse was she was trudging through mud and what looked like animal crap. The swamp was really beginning to get on her nerves, if it wasn't the smell that was getting annoying it was the fact that every couple of seconds something new was trying to kill her. She had never been the type of girl to freak out when there was a bug on her, but having mud between your toes was a little unsettling for her and a bath seemed like heaven at this point. But, it wasn't all bad, she was having a little fun since she was around her new friends and even though she was denying it to herself, Musa was excited about the possibility of seeing Riven again.

Musa, who was no longer trailing behind, had managed to get her spirits up. She had decided that looking at the negatives, it was better not to think about her argument with Daniel. Then as if the universe was trying to make her feel bad again, Musa felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and she opened it to see a text message from Leslie. '_Daniel's a bit angry, you okay?' _Musa prompt shut the phone. She was not in the mood to deal with that now.

The swamp was filled with creatures Musa had never even heard of. Musa had never gone camping or anything like that before so she thought it might have been because she was never really exposed to that kind of thing. But that was when she saw flowers that looked kind of like tulips. The girls continued to follow Bloom's lead when they all fell silent at Flora's command. "Be very quiet, I know these plants, they are quietus carnivourus," Flora said putting her finger in front of her mouth. "They hate noise,"

These were the same ones that Musa saw earlier. Good thing she didn't go and try to pick one like she had thought of doing.

"Really?" Stella asked a bit challengingly with a look of mischief. "Let's see," With that Stella blew a loud whistle with her fingers and noticed that nothing happened. "See nothing happened."

Musa couldn't help but laugh at what happened next. Stella was then pulled up by the agitated plant and swung back and forth. As Bloom tried to quiet the screaming princess, the rest of the girls stood completely still to not further annoy the already agitated plants.

"Stop screaming Stella," Bloom said quietly hoping the princess would mimic her tone. Finally after a couple more seconds of seeing Stella flailing around on the vine, she was dropped and landed on her ass.

"You okay?" Musa whispered feeling bad for laughing when Stella was grabbed by the plant. Btu she did feel better when Stella let out a giggle and nodded.

"No sudden noise okay," Flora reminded in a stricter tone, this time looking straight at Stella, who nodded dutifully.

"Help!" Flora cringed when the girls all turned when they heard a familiar voice yell.

"Need a hand?" Stella asked as if seeing them tied up against the vines was the most normal thing in the world.

"Stay way. These vines belong to incredibly dangerous, blood thirsty man eating plants!" Riven warned as he moved around a bit trying to get loose, sounding like a bad actor on a trashy soap opera. The girls looked at him with raised eyebrows, he was making it seem like they were all going to get killed and never seen again.

"They only eat loud mouths so you should pipe down," Musa ordered in a harsh tone, she didn't know why but a part of her blamed Riven for how she was feeling. And at the same time she was really happy to see him again and if someone had asked her just then what was the name of her boyfriend, she would have blanked. Or worse she would have said Riven's name. Musa didn't know how else to say it, but she was very physically attracted to him, but it was just a physical attraction, she pushed away the thought and smiled at him. She didn't want him to think she was a bitch, for some reason she really cared about what he thought about her.

"Everything's okay, little plants. Just relax," Flora cooed to the plants as they slowly loosened their grip around the boys and they were all very happy when they all managed to get free, although they all had very embarrassed looks on their faces.

"Quick. Let's get away from these things," Bloom whispered to the entire group. They all walked out to a clearing where all there were no quietus carnivorous in sight. Musa and the rest of the girls looked away from the predicament that they were in and saw Bloom and Brandon whispering to each other. They all stared for a second when Stella decided to speak up and tell them that there was no need to be so hush hush, and in doing so, break up whatever was going on with them.

"Hello! No need to whisper any more. We got away remember?" Stella said in a matter a fact tone. The two then looked back and saw the rest of the group stifling laughs.

Bloom paused for a second and then made a suggestion. "I think we should all look for the troll together from now on. Safety in numbers and all," Bloom said and looked over to the girls, who all knew why she wanted to team up with the guys, but it seemed like a good idea, and Musa wasn't against the idea either, Riven might have been a jackass, but there was something about him that made Musa really want to know him better. Not to mention they could use the help if they ever wanted to get out of the swamp.

"Sounds good to me." Flora agreed and Musa nodded in agreement as well.

"Me too." Sky said excitedly, again everyone knew why.

Musa was beginning to think that this would make their field study a lot more fun when Riven decided to say something that really got under her skin. She was trying desperately to overlook what he had said earlier, but this was not helping. "No way I'm teaming up with these girls." He spat out sounding like a five year old that didn't want to get coodies from a bunch of girls. Musa was starting to feel embarrassed about the attraction she felt towards him, and yet she wanted to give him a chance to redeem himself.

"You're on your own then, buddy," Sky smirked as he threw a hard look over to his friends, almost as if he were begging him to cooperate. "And if you find the troll just give us a shout." He joked as the group turned around and began to walk away.

Riven then joined the group reluctantly and looked over to Musa, still scowling as if he were being dragged against his will. Musa then walked up to him and said something in a conversational tone. "Glad to see you're perking up sunshine," she said smiling at him. She figured that he was the type of guy that was not quick to open up, which made her like him more, she was far too used to the kind of guy that acted like he cared about you and smooth talked his way in and out of trouble. And then there was that aire about him, like he didn't care about anything, adding to the bad boy thing Musa was feeling so pulled to.

"Don't worry, we don't have coodies, by the way, I'm Musa. " She said with a sly smile feeling her pulse quicken when she gently brushed pass him to catch up to Flora. She wasn't sure if she should try to talk to him or not, but for now she was going to just let things sit. She had a quick flashback to the way he was looking at her at the dance and suddenly felt some confidence on where she stood with him, it was nice to know that she may not have been the only one with these feelings. Musa didn't know this, but she left him looking at her with a sense of wonder and a deeply rooted attraction.

"You seem happy," Flora pointed out to Musa with a knowing look on her face. Even though Flora and Musa didn't share a room, they had become really good friends over the last week or so and it looked like it was probably because she and Flora had a lot of classes together.

"Who doesn't want to kick some troll butt?" Musa asked even though she had a feeling that Flora was referring to something else. Flora nodded when she figured out that Musa didn't want to admit there was something else going on. She let it go an decided to humor Musa for now. But, it was going to become hard for Musa to deny since she and Riven kept looking at each other.

We'll have to hop our way across." Techna said as the group arrived at a pond that would take way to long to walk around. "We will have to hop on these clumpatures,"

"Good Luck," Musa said staring at the clumaptures, she was not familiar with these specific types of plants that were floating along the water's edge. They didn't look very stable, but Musa was a pretty good swimmer, so if worse came to worse, she could probably swim across if she did happen to fall, but she did have an issue with the murkiness of the water. It would be scary not being able to see what you're swimming in. _Or Riven could jump in and save me _She thought to herself and smiled at the ridiculous notion, one of his friends would jump in after her way before he did.

"Thanks," Techna said in almost a whisper as if one extra sound wave would have made the clumpatures fall in to the lake and drag her down along with it. After Techna got her balance, she jumped to another and smiled.

"Come on guys. It's fun!" Techna shouted to the rest of the group that was still on dry land.

Stella and Musa were the next two to follow Techna. They exchanged looked before venturing onto their clumpatures. And as Musa had expected, they were really unstable, but not too bad. They seemed steady for a couples of seconds but then they began to sway from side to side dangerously. But, if she could do a 4 minute dance routine in heels, she could do this.

"My clumpatures wobbly," Flora said as she tried to steady herself and tired not fall into the mud filled water.

"Mine too!" Stella complained with a shriek.

"Same here. They're really unsteady," Bloom agreed. Musa was about to agree but there was no need to say the same thing four times, plus she was a little scared since she could feel herself sinking as the clumpature went down into the water.

"I believe the key to this whole enterprise is that you must keep moving. You must not stay still," Techna deduced after she jumped and found that it was a lot easier to jump around on the clumpatures then stand on one too long.

"Alright," Stella said with some enthusiasm and began to follow in Techna's example. The rest of the girls nodded and began to move quickly from one clumapture to the other, and the boys followed. Every now and again Musa would turn ever so slightly to see that it wasn't just the clumpatures that Riven was looking at. She couldn't help but blush, luckily nobody was able to see that on her face and if they did she could pass it off as being tired and out of breath.

Musa continued to hop along when she and Brandon found themselves in a bit of a predicament. "Hey, there's no clumpatures near by," Brandon said to Musa who was standing a few feet behind him. "I guess this calls for a double jump."

Musa then jumped onto the clumapture that Brandon just leapt off of and watched as he successfully landed on one that was really far away. "Nice one!" Musa said as she looked at the distance he managed to cover and got a little scared knowing she could not possibly jump as far as he just did.

"It's jump or swim (**2**) ," Brandon called when he realized that Musa hadn't followed him after he had completed his jump and judging by the terrified look on her face, she didn't want to either. "Not as hard as it looks," he called out in encouragement as he continued on his way, since the clumpatures on that side of the pond were becoming increasingly

unstable. Musa nodded and rallied up all her courage to jump across the divide that seemed to have gotten bigger since she had taken so long on deciding on whether she would jump or not. She landed perfectly and heard Bloom and Brandon say "Nice one!" at the same time. She smiled at the encouragement and hopped on a few more clumpatures and made her way to the other end and finally got back on land.

Musa smiled gleefully at her accomplishment let out a relived sign. Just then she heard a splash and looked back to the pond and saw that Riven was in the water. Suddenly her smile faded and she only became more worried when she heard Brandon say. "No!" With extreme worry in his voice and eyes.

While hopping along the clumpatures, it was easy to tell that the current was a lot stronger than it seemed. They pushed the clumpatures around so quickly that it was very necessity to move quickly. If Musa hadn't made that long jump, then it would have been her going under. Musa looked at the whole scene completely terrified. She did however feel a lot better when she saw Riven resurface and attempt to swim, but it was evident that he was being pulled back into the current.

Techna, who had fallen behind so that she could be in Timmy's proximity while they were hopping around on the clumpatures, quickly grabbed hold of Riven's hands and tried to pull him out of the water. He may have been a jerk, but he was still a part of their group. "Gotcha! Hold on Riven!"

Timmy, who was now on land as well, turned to see Techna grabbing Riven trying to pull him out of the water and it looked like she wasn't able to. "Don't let go of me." Riven managed to say as the current pull on him.

"She's slipping!" Stella cried out with terror when Techna slipped into the water and began to lose her footing on the slipper bed of the pond. Luckily for her and Riven, Timmy managed to get a hold of Techna's ankles and pulled her back with all of his strength.

"Gotcha!" Timmy yelled to her. "Don't worry. I'll get you out of here Techna," he told her and by the look on Techna's face, she believed him, but when he felt himself slipping, the rest of the group began to pull on Timmy.

"Heave! Heave!" yelled Stella to cheer on the group and finally Riven was pulled from the muddy current. Once on land Brandon, Sky, Bloom, Techna, Timmy, and Riven collapsed onto the ground happily and tried to catch their breath.

Musa gave a sigh of relief when she saw that all of her friends were okay, and she went to Techna to make sure she was alright, since going to Riven was out of the question.

"Bet you're glad you teamed up with us girls now, aren't you Riven?" Stella teased with a smug smile on her face. And judging by the look on Riven's face, he was not amused.

"Yeah, whatever," he grumbled as he stood up and really hoped that he wouldn't fall over, he was still a little dazed from everything that happened. And he was not going to let that comment go. "I would have gotten out. Come on, get up. Let's go already." He spat out and skulked away just as he had done earlier.

Musa was now very irritated by him. In the length of one day he had managed to snipe and bitch at them a million times when all the girls did then entire time was help him. Frustrated by the unwanted feelings she was having and by the fact that he had been an ungrateful ass all seemed to add up into one big ball, that and the combination of anger she had towards herself that day, made her want to just yell and rip into Riven. Who the hell did he think he was? Musa walked in the direction where Riven was when Timmy stopped her. "I know he's hard to deal with, but he's just a little rough around the edges," Timmy excused as he fixed his glasses and Brandon and Bloom walked up to them as well.

"Yeah, what Timmy said," Brandon said with some disappointment in his voice, be would have continued, but he was cut off by a loud roar that was coming from a clearing up ahead.

"That's our boy!" Sky yelled to the rest of the group. The guys gave a sigh of relief when they found out that they knew where the troll was, now they could at east lessen their punishment to just being punished for crashing a ship. It would have been a great moment if another scream didn't follow the first one. Instantly, the heroes ran to where they heard the scream and a few seconds after it processed in their minds, the girls followed.

"That's Amaryl!" Bloom said with terror in her voice.

"Don't worry! We'll get her out of there!" Sky assured her right before they got a good vantage point of the situation.

"They're trapped!" Bloom exclaimed, pushing a bush aside. "That's the same troll that was working with Knut. We've got to do something before he turns those girls into fairy dust!" The heroes kept a brave face, but it was a sticky situation since the three girls were trapped and there was no easy way of getting them to safely without having to deal with the troll.

"Alright everybody. I've got a plan. Phase one; the girls distract the troll!" Sky said bringing the group together.

The girls all stared at Sky like he had to be kiddig, there was no way that they were going to be casually used as distractions for a troll! It was bigger than all of them, he couldn't have been serious. "I hope that the troll eats the girls isn't phase two."

"No way because Brandon and Timmy will pin him down," Sky explained. "Then Riven and I jump in and slip the shackles on him." Sky finished, even thought it didn't make any of the girls seem at ease. They still had be distraction for a crazy troll.

"Sound like a plan," Techna said a bit reluctantly with skepticism, but it's not like she had a better idea.

"Hey there umm big guy, remember us?" Bloom said nervously as they approached the toll.

"Long time no see," Stella began. "Well don't be a stranger, come her and pass out hugs," Stella blurt out nervously. Musa stood there wide eyed and scared half to death. She trusted that the guys would get in there and restrain the beast, but staring at a 10 foot troll and not being able to use your magic was daunting. After a second, the troll came after them.

When they were a safe distance away, the girls turned around and witnessed the heroes at work. Musa couldn't help but worry when she watched the guys try to take down the troll. They were obviously trying hard, but the troll was winning hands down. For a second they had the troll pinned, but the next second the troll threw them off of it. All the guys seemed to land safely except for Riven whose head was squeezed in the palm of the troll's hand. Musa watched in horror hoping that they would all come out of this okay. Finally, after a few seconds, Riven was freed from the troll's grasp, but all the guys were thrown again and the troll was free once again.

"Oh no!" Stella screamed and pointed at the troll as he began to run back into the cover of the swamp. "He's getting away,"

"I thought you went to school for bravery, not botchery," Amaryl said in the bitchiest tone they had ever heard and then giggled and ran away. And her comment didn't only upset the guys, who put themselves on the line to save them, but the girls were pretty upset by it too. Brandon and Timmy walked off on their own, while Riven sat down and Sky went to Stella.

Musa stood with Techna and Flora not sure if she should see if Riven was alright, he hit the ground pretty hard and at the same time she was rather annoyed with him, but his friends were noble and he had been out there fighting as well, he had to covering up a personality that he didn't want to reveal. Musa decided to walk away and leave him alone since she really didn't have anything to say to him.

A few minutes later the girls could hear them arguing, and even though it was getting a bit annoying, there was some humor in it. It was because it had been a long day and tensions were high. In addition to that they hadn't completed the mission they were told to do so it made sense that they were arguing. Finally after a few more minutes of bickering, they managed to get over it and focus on the task at hand.

"Come on," Riven said after he and Sky had finished arguing. "We have a troll to catch,"

* * *

"I think we should listen to the voice of nature," Flora suggested. The girls nodded and the guys simply followed along since they had no other choice or plan and it was getting kind of late.

"What do you hear now, Bloom?" Brandon asked a few minutes later when they were even deeper into the swamp.

"Well, it's not really a sound," Bloom said still concentrating on the surroundings. Musa stood trying to help, but she still couldn't manage to hear anything except distant voices of her classmates. She could lock onto sounds hundreds of feet away, but the voice of nature was too elusive for her.

"Yeah Brandon. The voice of nature is something that you feel inside," Flora said trying to better explain Bloom's explanation.

"Huh? Well I've been trying and I can't feel anything at all," Sky said with a confused look on his face.

"I can't feel this voice of nature either," Techna said "I'm from a wired realm, but believe me; we can trust Bloom and Flora on this."

"Yeah, Techna's right, Bloom and Flora have been pretty dead on about this today," Musa agreed.

"What?" Riven asked in an almost irritated tone, but it was as if he stopped himself. He then looked over to Musa and didn't acknowledged her at all, but for a second they locked eyes, but they were immediately pulled from the staring contest they were having when Bloom spoke up.

"The feeling stops here." She said in an almost confused voice. It didn't make much sense, where could the troll possibly have gone.

"So where's the troll?" Sky asked as he and the rest of the guys looked around the dense vegetation of the swamp.

"Gone, but I sense something else, something cold." Bloom said trying to figure out what nature was telling her.

"There's really negative energy in the air here," Stella agreed.

"Yeah and it feels like something happened here," Musa added finally being able to sense something, it wasn't much but there was a definite bad vibe coming from the whole area.

"I feel it too, singed ions indicate dark magic," Techna informed the group implying that there were singed ions in the vicinity.

"So someone used dark magic to make the troll vanish," Sky question still a bit confused as to where this was going.

"But who?" Timmy questioned aloud to the group.

"Well, we know the troll works for Knut and we know that Knut is the grunt for the three witches," Musa said beginning to put together the pieces of information that they had collected about the witches over the last couple of days and over their encounters with them.

"Yeah. You think those three are the ones that shot us down?" Brandon asked her, and Riven suddenly had an overwhelming desire to hit his friend for so much as directing a question to the fairy.

"Look!" Bloom said as she bent down and picked up something from the swamp floor. While the boys looked as confused as they did as when they started talking about the voice of nature, Musa and the rest of the girls knew exactly what Bloom was getting at.

"Those look like duck feathers," Techna said with a knowing tone.

"And isn't someone we know being stalked by a duck because of a spell we put on her?" Bloom said referring to the night of the dance.

"Icy," Musa said in an almost ominous voice.

"It looks like we got the proof we need," Flora pointed out.

"But what are they up to? We've got to find out!" Bloom said getting a second wind ready to work all night if it came down to that.

"How about we work on this tomorrow," Musa suggested feeling the ache in her feet. "We still have a long walk ahead of us,"

"No you don't," Timmy said as he pointed up to the sky. He was looking up at a brand knew Red Fountain craft ready to land right below them. "I put out a signal when our ship crashed and explained to Saladin what happened when I sent it out. He put a ship on autopilot to the coordinates in my hero's personal assistant," Timmy explained with some confidence. (**3)**

The group looked at Timmy with great relief. Musa wanted to run up and hug the specialist, but that probably wouldn't have been the best idea. She was just so happy to have a ride back to the crystal clearing instead of having to navigate all the way back.

"So you girls wanna ride back with us?" Sky said flashing his best smile at Stella.

The girls didn't say anything, they simply followed the guys back aboard the ship and look their seats. Musa closed her eyes for a second and felt like she could fall asleep right there. A small patch of turbulent air however, cause the fairy to wake from her quick nap. She looked around to see Bloom with Brandon, Timmy, Techna and Flora talking and Stella practically sitting on Sky's lap and helping him with a few cuts and scrapes he got. She then looked over to Riven who was sitting in the corner with the scowl that Musa was now coming to love. Saw he was cut up a bit on his arm, and decided this might be a nice time to talk to him,

Musa walked up to him with the disinfectant spray that was sitting on the empty chair next to Stella, not that the princess of solairia noticed, she was too busy with Sky.

"I don't need your he –," Riven said before he was cut off by the severe sting of the disinfectant seeping into his cut.

"Oh it might sting," Musa said innocently after she noticed the quick grimace on Riven's face. He was quick to change it back to his normal look of indifference, but she caught it. He remained silent while Musa put a bandage on the cut and felt the ship land. It was clear that neither of them wanted to bring up how they had seen each other at the dance, or the fat that they kept staring at each other, but neither of them could deny the attraction that they felt. Musa would not have normally been so forward with someone, but she had never felt like this before and it was becoming clear to her, even though she didn't want to admit it, that this was becoming more than a physical attraction. "You don't need my help, but you never said you didn't _want _it," Musa pointed out as soon as she was finished. Riven didn't reply but Musa could tell that he wanted to say something remotely nice, but something was holding him back.

"Here you are girls," Sky said as he landed the ship. Musa then stood up and walked out of the ship.

The guys stood in the entrance of the doorway to the ship and said their goodbyes to the girls. Riven however leaned against the wall of the ship with his arms crossed. He felt the bandage that Musa put on his arm and looked over to Musa. She looked down and gave a shy smile, that she was sure looked goofy and then turned around and walked away.

* * *

Back at the dorm, the first thing Musa did was hop in the shower. It felt so good to wash off the mud and everything else that managed to get all over her that day. When she inished her shower she saw her phone sitting on her bed and thought of the boyfriend she had completely forgotten about that day.

On some level she knew she should have been thinking about Daniel instead of Riven, but it was so weird when she was around him. Musa wanted to call and apologize and get the guilt off her chest, but she was pretty sure it wouldn't. The guilt was being caused by her feelings for Riven and she wasn't going to confess that to her boyfriend. _It will pass. _Musa told herself. It was some stupid crush and like all crushes she would be over it soon enough. She was too scared to call Daniel right now, he might pick up on something in her voice and he would know that she was lying when she said there was nothing going on.

After deciding to call Daniel the next day, Musa walked into Bloom's room where all the girls were congregated. She leaned against the wall since her feet still ached from the long day and talked to her friends. "I've been thinking," Bloom said after they had finished talking about the ridiculous test they were going to have in potions the next day. "We're a really awesome group and we should have an awesome name," Bloom began. "What do you think?"

"Actually, it sounds like a good idea," Techna said thinking about the positives of having a team name. "A name is good for quick reference,"

"A name would give us that certain something," Stella pointed out. "We could be the wonder five or the Stella five," she continued, her eyes going starry when she thought of their group being named after her. "Or B.S.M.T.F!" she finished the most excitedly.

"B.S.M.T.F?" Musa questioned softly from against the wall. She didn't really get the letters, but it was probably because she was tired and it was probably affecting her thinking.

"Check it, Beauty, Style, Magic, Taste, and Flare," Stella said counting with her fingers. "And those are all the first initials of out names,"

"Nah, that's way too cheesy," Musa said brushing away the idea.

"I say Bloom picks it," Flora suggested. All the girls agreed and eventually Stella was on board.

"Really?" Bloom asked excitedly and she went into her drawer in her nightstand. "Cause I did come up with a little something, and I even made a logo, check it out," She pulled out a cloth with the word 'Winx' written on it. Musa was a little confused by this since winx was the power fairies drew from.

"We're the Winx Club," Bloom said excitedly and the girls agreed that it was the perfect name.

After a few more minutes of talking, all the girls decided to head off to bed. Musa lay in her bed with a million things running through her mind, the primary one being Riven. She smiled at the thought of him and decided that she would let this crush take it's course and not let it affect her relationship with Daniel, and until then she didn't mind letting her mind drift to him.

* * *

_**1.**__Umm can you say denial? She has it bad for Riven...how cute!_

_**2**__. I never understood why the guys were only close to their crushes. Like there was a rule that you couldn't be close to your crush's friend. I mean it would make sense that the guys would try to get on the good side of the friends of the girl they are trying to impress. So I figured I would throw this in to add some lines of communication to all of the characters, not just the pairings. _

_Next chapter - A Date with Destiny _

_xoxo  
__princessm_


	5. Date with Disaster

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* * *

**

Date with Disaster

"Okay girls, it's pretty easy," Karen began as she and the rest of the dance team dancers began their practice for that had gone on for a few hours now. "It's step, pop, turn and stop," Karen said demonstrating a four count of steps that most of the dancers picked up pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, Musa wasn't one of them. She had been way too preoccupied with thoughts about Daniel and Riven. A war was going on in her mind and it was affecting a lot more than her relationship with Daniel.

Karen then turned on the music and had all the dancers do it along the beat. "Musa, come here," she called out and dismissed the there dancers with a flick of her wrist. "What's with you, this is way too easy of a routine for you not to get."

"It's nothing," Musa insisted as she walked across the dance studio, sat on the floor and leaned her head back against the wall.

"I seriously doubt that," Karen said walking over to the princess and standing over her, staring.

"It's nothing,"

"It's something, and it's affecting your dancing so now it's my business," Karen said sitting down next to her. Finally Musa looked up from the floor to met Karen's prying eyes. "Spill,"

"Just trouble with –"

"Daniel," Karen finished almost knowing what Musa was gonna say. "And why don't any of your new friends know about him?" (**1**)

That was when it dawned on Musa that she was hiding her relationship with Daniel from her friends, she knew she was keeping it from her friends, but she never really thought too much of it, until now, hearing someone else say it made her seem like a horrible person. "What's going on?" Karen repeated.

"I'm a bad person," Musa said thinking about the situation. She was in a way lying to her friends, and instead of trying to make things right with her boyfriend, she'd been fantasizing about another guy.

"If you're a bad person, then the devil should be coming to get my soul any second," Karen said.

"I dunno, I completely overreacted to something he said and now he won't even call me," Musa said as she idly opened and closed the top of her water bottle.

"So call him," Karen said pointing out the obvious. "And what did he say?"

Musa didn't want to admit to anyone that she had overreacted to what Daniel said because she was guilty of doing it exactly what she was accused of. "Well, he doesn't want to speak to me obviously, or I would have called,"

"You need to make things right," Karen advised. "Small things tend to explode into big things without any warning and it will kill your relationship,"

"Yeah,"

"I mean it," Karen warned. "You'll lose him if you don't make an effort. Things aren't going to be easy especially since you two are so far apart."

"And your friends don't know about him because," Karen said and Musa looked up at her and wondered how she knew that. "I know everything,'

"I dunno," Musa said honestly not knowing why she had decided to keep this from her friends, actually she knew why; she just couldn't bring herself to accept it. "Daniel and I have been on rocky ground since I left, I dunno," Musa finished as she gently played with the necklace Daniel had given her.

"You need to figure it out,"

"I know,"

"And more importantly, you need to call him,"

"Yeah, I'll call him tonight," Musa resolved looking up to Karen who looked as if she didn't believe her. "I will,"

"You better," Karen said. "I don't want you all weepy in a week freaking out about a break up," she joked as she and Musa stood and collected their things.

"I should go, I promised the girls I would help with a potion," Musa said realizing she was gonna be late if she didn't get going.

"Okay, I'll see you later, and you better call Missy,"

"I will, I promise!" Musa shouted happily on her way out of the gym, suddenly things didn't seem so hard to deal with.

* * *

"Okay, 500 potatoes down," Flora exclaimed optimistically.

"And only 500 to go," Techna reminded dampening Flora's great mood.

"You know what, I'll feel like a dork if this doesn't work," Bloom began as all the girls continued to peel potatoes to help Bloom out with a spell she needed to cast. Musa stood next to Bloom and gave her a questioning look. She did not just peel hundreds of potatoes for nothing.

"Well where did you find the formula," Musa questioned as she continued to peel the potato. This may have been tedious, but she was enjoying it, back home she was never allowed in the kitchen. It was, as her aunt would say, for people beneath her. But, Musa always found cooking kind of interesting and the closest she ever got was making potions and playing with her easy bake oven when she was a child. (**2**)

"It was in vanity fairies magazine's new self improvement guide," Bloom said putting down her peeler and explaining her formula to Musa. "So I mean it should work, 1000 potatoes, a bushel of flip weed and a back flip and your making good decisions all the next day," She finished as she jumped around the kitchen.

"I thought I heard itty bitty voices," said the chef at Alfea, Mystro, he was known to be a bit cranky whenever anyone ever said something bad about the food. He barged in and stopped Bloom's leap of joy mid air and stopped all the girls peeling when he walked in. "What are you girls doing in my kitchen?" he asked angrily.

"Umm…" Bloom said a bit nervously. "We're just working on a project for potions class," she excused.

Mystro began to walk around the kitchen and survey the damage the girls have done. "Look at this place, a mess,"

"The potions lab was signed out," Techna said hoping that would serve as a better excuse.

"Relax, Mystro," Musa said in a dismissive tone. They were using the kitchen, bid deal. "Here have a spud," she said half wanting to get a reaction out of him, he seemed like the kind of person that would flip out over nothing.

"I have spared no potatoes," he said with horror in his voice. "You're using my babies, and what is this all about," he finished as he pointed towards four pans that were on the stove cooking what smelled like eggs inside of them. Musa looked over to the rest of her friends who were hoping that Mystro would leave soon so they could get back to what they were doing.

"It's dinner, we got hungry," Bloom answered innocently.

"That is not how you cook,"

"Hey, how hard can it be to make an omelet?" Musa questioned.

"You have to show love to your food," Mystro said sounding like he got very up close and personal to everything he cooked. The girls however continued to ignore him and carry on making their dinner. "You cannot neglect it, you must put passion in your cooking," After, Musa, Techna, and Flora completed almost perfect omelet flips, Bloom gave it a try, except she wasn't as lucky and it landed on the ceiling fan.

"don't worry, I got it," Flora said as she ran over to the light switch and turned on the fan, which sent the omelet flying into the air and it eventually landed right on Mystro's face. After yelling for a few more minutes, he left the girls back to their work.

"does that guy annoy anyone else?" Musa asked loudly as the other girls laughed.

"The flipweed is almost done," Flora said as she opened the over and poked her head through the steam to look at the flip weed.

"So what's the sitch in the kitch girl," Stella said usually cheerier than normal. Musa wasn't annoyed with Stella, but she had promised to help and it really pushed her buttons when she threw a princess act and flaked out on things she was responsible for. It was annoying to say the least.

"Being fashionably late only applies to social engagements," Techna said calling her out on her lateness while she continued to peel a potato.

"Yeah, I know I totally said help, but your just gonna have to let me play a good excuse card?" Stella asked not really asking the question, but telling the girls that she would be using an excuse.

"Oh yeah, what's the excuse this time," Bloom said very uninterested in the excuse.

"I just received a last minute invitation,"

"Another shoe of the month club?" Musa asked sarcastically.

"Prince Sky!" Stella squealed excitedly. "He invited me to meet him at some place called the black lagoon café tonight,"

"Cool," Flora exclaimed while she read over the note.

"A handwritten note," Musa said remembering Annabelle's guide of conduct when dealing with guys, and she always considered that when a guy took the time out to do something himself for you, especially when they could easily have someone else do it for them. Daniel was always very romantic in that sense, he was willing to go the extra mile to surprise Musa. That was when Musa realized she and Daniel still hadn't spoken since the incident the occurred a few days ago and she really needed to talk to him and make things right. "Whoo, you go Stella," Musa said in a less enthusiastic tone.

"I've been trying to figure out what to wear, but I am in desperate need of second opinions," She said with a pleading look on her face. Stella was a good friends, but it was a bit annoying to know that she expected everyone to drop everything and do things for her.

"Say no more," Bloom said as the girls walked out of the kitchen and over to Stella's room to find something for Stella to wear.

"Doesn't this guy lose points for the short notice," Techna asked making Musa think more about Annabelle's little guide for dating.

"Yes, but he get extra ones for the formal invitation," Stella replied.

"So will Brandon be there?" Bloom asked as Musa noticed a smile grow across her face, it was so obvious that she was totally smitten.

"No, Sky is giving his servants the night off," Stella said not realizing how insulting that sounded, but Bloom picked up on it rather quickly and was also quick on reminding Stella that Brandon was not a servant. Bloom wasn't the only one that Stella seemed to anger with her comments, Techna, Musa and even Flora were no amused by her princess antics.

"Musa be a dear and bring me that green chest," Stella called as she waved her hand as if Musa were a servant of hers.

"Of course your highness," _I'm a princess too, Stella, you don't see me acting like a bitch,_ Musa thought to herself angrily. One thing she hated more than anything was a princess that thought she was above everyone because of her title, Musa made sure she never acted like they because she never wanted people to think that she8 was that shallow. Apparently, Stella didn't have the same concern. Although Musa tried to ignore it because she knew Stella did mean well most of the time, there was a part of her that wanted to rip into her and tell her she was nothing more than a rich girl with low self-esteem, but it's like she needed to, it was pretty obvious to anyone who ever met Stella. That was what always held Musa back, no matter how much Stella pissed her off, she knew that Stella was hardest on herself and she used her royal status to make herself feel better. (**3**) She finally dragged the ridiculously heavy chest over to Stella and gave it to her. "Ugh, what's in this thing,"

"Oh just a few accessories," Stella said nonchalantly as she opened the chest with her foot. Musa was used to looking at fancy jewels since Isabelle probably owned half of the universe's supply of them, but something about Stella was pissing her off today. It was probably because she knew she was on rocky ground with Daniel and this was just enough to push her into a fury and taking it out on the annoying one in the group was the easiest thing in the group.

Musa began to get lost in her thoughts and worries about her relationship with Daniel when she smelled smoke. She stood up an interrupted whatever Techna was saying when she was sure she smelled smoke. "Hey, does anybody smell that?"

"That's stinky," Stella said paying no attention to the smoke entering the room as she did poses in front of a full length mirror.

"The flipweed!" Techna said as all the girls, except Stella who was too busy gazing at her reflection, looked at each other and then instantly began sprinting down the hallway, leaving the golden haired fairy standing in her room alone.

"Hello! We're not done," Stella demanded when her friends ran out of her room.

"Good Luck tonight Stella," Bloom said not looking back.

"Have a good time," Musa yelled when she was out of earshot from Stella as she pushed the doors to the kitchen open to see the entire room filled with smoke.

"Guess the flipweed is well done," Bloom said optimistically.

"Well and done are two words rarely used together when you girls are involved," Said a voice as a figure came through the smoke. It was none other than Ms. Griselda. "I can't wait to hear the explanation for this,"

"Uhh, how's it going Ms. G," Musa said nervously knowing that she was already on her bad side.

"Aerolux," She said ignoring the musical princess's question as she waved her fingers around and the smoke in the room dissipated.

"The Mystro tells me that you've taken enough potatoes to –," Griselda began when

"I'm here!" Flora said as she ran in with the fire extinguisher and tripped, triggering the nozzle of the extinguisher to open and spray the foamy bubbles all over the disgruntled disciplinarian. The four girls then stood in shock and stared at Ms. Griselda as she slowly wiped the extinguisher fluid off her face and her clothes.

"Since your having such a good time in the kitchen," Griselda began angrily as she looked back to see Musa stifling a laugh. "You can spend the rest of the night right her, cooking dinner for the entire school,"

With a quick halt, the laughing stopped when the girls realized that they would have to be cooking the and then cleaning up after that. "She didn't say while we were here…" Musa insinuated when she realized that they could kill two birds with one stone.

"Hey yeah!" Bloom exclaimed happily, she still really wanted to make the position, she really needed the good decision making spell, her decisions with magic and everything else were not so great. "She never said that we couldn't still finish the potion,"

The girls worked until late and finished both dinner for the entire school and then finally went upstairs to bed.

* * *

"I wonder why Timmy hasn't called…" Techna said to herself and gave an exasperated sigh. "Boys…"

"And what is Riven's problem?" Musa said with some attitude when she thought about the specialist that was already occupying her thoughts way to much. Techna heard Musa's complaint on her way into their room and figured she was talking about his bad attitude at the swamp. Musa, who didn't know she could hear her, kept on mumbling to herself. "Why doesn't he ask me out like Sky did Stella?" she said to herself forgetting that her friends could probably hear her. (**4**)

"What!" Techna exclaimed when she heard what Musa mumbled.

"Nothing," Musa said looking at Techna like she was crazy, hopefully Techna didn't hear enough of that to know anything.

"Well, I took the potion, and it should start working in the morning," Bloom said optimistically as she walked out of her room and into the room where Techna and a now very nervous Musa were talking.

"Musa wants to go out with Riven," Techna said as Musa began to get very nervous.

"No I don't!" Musa said nervously denying everything she had just said.

"What? Why?" Bloom asked totally confused as to what anyone would see in him, of coarse that was probably because she was so enchanted by Brandon. "He was so mega rude to us a couple of days ago,"

"No, that's not what I said," Musa said now getting really frustrated. "I don't like him, he's such a jackass –," Musa denied trying to figure out any way to get them to believe her.

"You know, I've read that boys tend to act that way when they are crushing," Techna informed completely ignoring Musa.

"Yeah, that could be it," Bloom thought for a few seconds and yawned with pure exhaustion.

"That's great," Musa said sarcastically. "But, I don't like Riven. At all," Musa finally confirmed.

"But you just said…" Techna said thinking back to what Musa had mumbled thinking that she had said something that questioned why Riven hadn't asked her out.

"I said he was annoying," Musa said continuing to give Techna a confused look as if she was being crazy. Techna then gave up and walked over to her dresser and began getting ready for bed, it was already pretty late.

"Well goodnight girls," Bloom said giving a wave and walking into her room. Musa also began getting ready for bed and she couldn't help but keep looking at her phone. Why hadn't he called yet? She had spoken to Leslie just this morning and she said that Daniel was fine and didn't seem upset, so why was she still getting the silent treatment. Musa knew that the obvious option was to call him, but a part of her wanted to let things stew, even though it was bad for the relationship.

* * *

Later that night, Musa couldn't sleep. Even though she was exhausted from the day she couldn't get Daniel off of her mind. She actually took solace in that fact since for the last week or so she'd been thinking about Riven, it was about time Daniel drifted back in her head. Musa turned over in her bed and looked at the alarm clock on her desk. It was 2 a.m. and she was not going to get any sleep until she talked to her boyfriend. Plus, Karen would kick her ass if she didn't fix things immediately.

Musa quietly got out of bed and grabbed her cell phone. She walked over to her balcony and shut the door quietly, sat down and leaned against the large window and looked out at the Alfea campus. After a few seconds of convincing herself to call him, Musa hit Daniel's name and waited for him to pick up.

"Hello," Daniel said in a detached voice, Musa's hope immediately fell when she heard his tone, which spoke volumes as to how he felt.

"Hey," Musa said not sure what say.

"Something you need?" Daniel asked, he and Musa got in a fight days ago and neither of them had spoken since. It was very out of the norm for them and Daniel was really beginning to believe that maybe it was over.

"I'm so sorry Daniel," Musa said genuinely praying he would forgive her. "I overreacted for no reason, I promise you nothing is going on here,"

"I never meant to accuse you Musa," Daniel said, his tone softening. "I was honestly joking, but I'd be lieing if I said I'm not worried," he admitted.

Musa had seen Daniel in every emotion possible over the years, but one he rarely played was vulnerable. He had everything and he was never the one to worry about losing something since everything he had he could easily replace. But, Musa began to realize that his feelings for her must have been very deep if he was so scared of losing her that he would admit it. "I know you didn't mean to, and I know you were joking," Musa said avoiding lying to her boyfriends and telling him that he had nothing to worry about. "And Daniel, I would never do anything to betray your trust,"

"I know you wouldn't," Daniel began. "Look I know this is gonna sound paranoid, but just tell me I have nothing to worry about,"

Musa sat there frozen. Technically he didn't since Riven clearly made no type of pass at her, and Musa would never make a pass at a guy, so he didn't have anything to worry about. "Daniel, you have nothing to worry about," Musa confirmed. "You are the only one I want," she was thankful that this conversation took place over the phone or else he would have been able to read her face and read that she was lying to him.

"Thanks baby," Daniel said with an obvious sound of relief in his voice. "I would say the same but you would probably find out before I did," Daniel said referring to if he ever tried to betray Musa's trust. It was true, gossip spread so fast Musa would probably find out about anything a second after it happened.

"I miss you," Musa threw out there. She did miss him, so much. There was so much going on and it would have been nice to have him there as a support system.

"I miss you too," Daniel confirmed. "But hey, I'll come and visit you, okay?"

Musa agreed and sounded happy, but she was very nervous about seeing him, especially here. When she wasn't around Riven and around Daniel, she was fine. But, if Riven and Daniel were there, she would be very conflicted and it would probably show in her face.

The two talked for a couple more hours, Musa was really happy to have heard his voice after such a long time. She needed him and it was clear to her that she was not herself when they were arguing, she was glad to get things back to normal. Finally, around 4 a.m. Musa managed to get back to bed and fell asleep almost instantly, hoping she would dream about Daniel that night.

* * *

"Stupid , dumb, UGH!!" Musa was suddenly awake from her dream about Riven after she heard yelling and screaming coming from Stella's room. The Solarian princess also seemed to be throwing things since every couple of seconds Musa could hear something being knocked over or broken.

Musa rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and sat up and bed and looked to Techna who had the same confused look on her face. "So, I'm guessing Stella didn't have the enchanted evening she expected," Musa said pointing out the obvious.

"That's for sure," Techna said from her bed. Then there was another crash and the two immediately got out of their beds and walked to their door, unsure if they should enter what sounded like a war zone.

"That sounded expensive," Musa said to Techna as they peaked out their door and saw Flora and Bloom already in the hallway. The four looked at each other for a second and then Bloom decided to move ahead of the pack.

"Stella, everything alright?" Bloom asked nervously as she ventured up to her door and the rest of the girls stayed a close distance back behind her.

"I don't think that's a good decision," Flora warned referring to the spell that should have been taking effect that morning.

"Stella?" Bloom asked and after a few seconds the door opened and Stella peaked her head out with a look that seemed angry and nervous.

"Uhh, hiya," She said nervously. "What's up,"

"We were going to ask you that, what are you doing in there?" Techna asked as Musa peaked her head around to too the damage in Stella's room. Her entire room was in shambles, there were clothes all over the place, there were broken picture frames and what looked a vase, or what used to be a vase. "What's with all the noise?" She asked even though looking into her room made the situation self-explanatory.

"Uhh nothing, just a little cleaning and a little redecorating," Stella excused nervously like she was trying to wrap the conversation up as soon as possible.

"So what time did you get in last night, we didn't hear you," Bloom asked delaying her departure.

"Yeah, and how'd the date go," Flora asked with a wink. "We expect all the details,"

"I got in late and the date went fine," Stella said quickly with annoyance in her voice.

"You're not getting off that easy, come on tell, tell," Bloom insisted as Stella began to shut the door.

"It was very romantic,"

"Go on, did he walk you home, did he kiss you goodnight?" Bloom continued to drill the princess not noticing that she was getting angrier by the second.

"Oh come on, don't you have your own lives, how totally pathetic," Stella snapped and slammed her door shut. The girls took a few steps back and wondered what was going on, but Musa was less than happy. She was up late the night before and she was woken up by Stella's little temper tantrum.

"Oh, I'll show her pathetic –," Musa said angrily ready to go in there and pull out some blonde hair from atop the princess's empty head.

"Calm down Musa," Bloom said holding her friends shoulder in an attempt to keep her from loosing her temper. "Let's leave her alone,"

The girls then proceeded to get ready for class since they were all pretty wide awake now and since that particular day they all had the same class, they would all go down together.

Transformation class went along as it normally did; they changed their heads into pumpkins, which was actually pretty cool. It felt like her head was in cave, of coarse the cave was orange and mushy, but it was still pretty cool.

"Guess little Miss all that decided not to go to class," Musa said sarcastically as she and the rest of the girls walked out of class. Musa looked at the time and thought that Stella would have at least calmed down from her mood swing by now, but no such luck. She was probably still having her tantrum.

"Something must be really troubling her," Flora pointed out worriedly.

"Who cares she was beyond rude this morning," Techna dismissed, she too was pretty tired of Stella's annoying behavior.

"I know Techna, but still," Flora insisted.

"She's our friend," Bloom said. "I'm gonna go check on her,"

"You're the one with the good judgment," Musa said as she, Techna and Flora walked over to the quad to hang out for the next ten minutes until Palladium's class began.

* * *

It was to hang out in the quad, especially since this part of the realm had sunny days 95 percent of the time. Musa and Flora sat against a tree while Techna sat on the grass under the shade and began on the homework that they were just assigned.

"Wow Tech, I could never be as productive as you," Musa said, it was true. She was one of the biggest procrastinators in the universe. Musa found singing and dancing a lot more entertaining then mundane tasks like transformations homework.

"You know, if you didn't procrastinate as much, you probably wouldn't be up so late every night finishing homework," Techna scolded.

"I prefer staying up late," Musa explained. "I think best late at night, plus it's more fun this way,"

"Mmmhmm," Techna said in a disapproving tone that made Musa giggle. The three sat there for a few more seconds when Ali Larson, a junior and member of the Alfea dance team walked up to them.

"Hey Musa what are you doing tonight?" Ali asked as she approached the tree where the three fairies were seated. "Hey Techna, hey Flora," she said politely when she noticed the other two sitting by Musa.

"Hi," Said Flora and Techna in a coincidental unison.

Musa saw Ali and stood, wiping the grass off her legs. "Hey Ali, umm I think I'm free tonight, why?" Msua said fearing she had a impromptu dance practice, she loved the team and the girls were super nice, but she was worn out and one full night of sleep was taunting her.

"The dance team girls are going to Magix this afternoon and we're staying there till later tonight to party," Ali began. "And it's at the Luxe and it should be fun, you in?"

Musa thought it over, she did want to go out and see the night life of Magix, but she didn't want to leave her friends behind. And there was the issue of sleep, but still she did want to go out for awhile. "Umm, I'm not sure, I'm so lacking in sleep," Musa began. "But if I can get a nap in later then I'll meet you girls there, the Luxe right?"

"Yup, you should come it will be fun," Ali said. "Plus really hot guys, they're older, but hey that's always more fun," Ali finished with a wicked smile and walked away. "Call me if your coming!" she shouted when she was across the quad.

Musa nodded and turned back to sit down on the grass. "Why don't you go?" Flora questioned. It seemed like a fun night and Musa had told the girls once that she loved to go to clubs.

"Honestly, I am beyond tired," Musa said honestly leaning her head against the bark of the tree. "I haven't been getting much sleep,"

"That is why you should do your homework in a timely matter," Techna reminded.

"Okay well –," Musa began when she heard a loud thud come from what looked like their balcony. A few other girls in the quad also heard the noise but casually brushed it off. Musa however remembered that Stella was in a foul mood and that Bloom went to talk to her.

"Musa what's wrong?" Techna questioned when Musa stopped talking abruptly.

"Guys, did you hear that?" She questioned, but judging by the looks on their faces, they didn't. "I think we should check on Stella,"

* * *

The fairies stood and walked over to their dorm when they heard what sounded like a full on fight going on. "Alright, something is definitely wrong with Stella," Techna pointed out when they walked in to see the common room was torn apart.

"She's through here!" Musa said when she heard the fighting coming from Stella's room.

"We're coming Bloom!" Techna said. The three fairies burst into the room just in time to see the damage in it, but Stella had apparently jumped through the window before the girls could get their, leaving Bloom in shock.

Bloom sat on Stella's bed and explained everything that happened to the girls. "She threw a chair at you!" Techna exclaimed in shock, she was still pretty shocked that Stella went so far as to actually fighting Bloom. The girls had all went to their rooms to see if Stella went there and she had. All of their rooms now resembled Stella's and it was safe to say that they were all a little ticked at the golden haired fairy for not only attacking Bloom, but also attacking their rooms.

"Well, she threw the chair at the wall," Bloom explained as Musa looked at the window, which was Stella's means for escape. She was perplexed as to how Stella would have flown through the window, Bloom had said that she wasn't in her winx form, meaning she didn't have her wings. Did she throw herself through the window then transform?

"She threw a raging witch ball at you," Flora exclaimed.

"Oh well that's better," Musa said sarcastically and tried to figure out where Stella could have possibly learned an attack that dark, or even conjure that type of dark magic.

"Why is she being so fuddy?" Flora questioned frustrated. (**5**)

"There is a technical term for how she is acting," Techna said. "Crazy," She said in a mocking sing song tone.

"I have another word for it," Musa said with her arms folded as she continued to survey the damage.

"I think there's more to it than that," Bloom said as she thought for awhile. "I think she's in danger, I don't know what kind of danger, but my new powers and my good judgment are telling me we have to do something,"

"I don't understand why we have to do anything," Musa said angrily having just about enough of Stella's princess act. "If she wants to act like a stuck up witch than that's her deal,"

"What if she's being forced to act against her will," Flora said giving Stella the benefit of the doubt. "What if there is some sort of spell on her?"

"That's what I'm saying, look we gotta work together you know to solve this mystery," Bloom said positive that something else was at play here and she was not the only one. Musa, who was walking around the room looking for clue spotted something that might help them out.

"Why don't we find out what happened last night from suspect number 1," Musa said picking up the invitation that Stella got the night before from the floor. "Prince Sky of Eraklyon, here's the invitation,"

"Looks like we're off to Red Fountain," Bloom said excitedly, probably so she could maybe talk to Brandon.

* * *

Musa had never seen the Red Fountain campus before, but it looked almost like a castle, it was one that was less fairy tale like and more fort like. But it was still pretty cool. Musa had felt that Daniel's insecurity with all these guys being around was foolish, but since she met Riven, she understood why he was so worried. And looking around, she would have been the same way in his place, these guys were hot.

The girls asked around a bit, and got hit on as well, but they managed to finally find Prince Sky in class, luckily the teacher wasn't around and the girls were able to pull him away for a second.

"Not that I wouldn't ask her out, but ever since that little incident with the troll in the swamp, we haven't been allowed to leave campus so uh, that makes dating a little difficult," Sky explained seeing the confused looks on fairies faces. "Wait what's that in you're hand,"

"Your invitation," Flora said. Just then Musa caught sight of Riven, he said something rather rude, but he laughed and for the first time, Musa saw him smile. It was dreamy. She wasn't sure if Riven even saw her there, but she became a lot more aware of how she looked, not that she should care what he thought of her. She quickly stood up straight and tried to tune back into her conversation with the girls and Prince Sky but she kept drifting her gaze back to him. And what seemed to become a tradition when they were in each other's proximity, Musa's eyes locked to Riven's and the two stood in awe of her for a second. Then a second later it seemed like they both snapped out of it and Riven gave some snarky comment to whatever Bloom had just said to Sky.

Musa, who hadn't heard what Riven said, but just as he had snapped out of their little staring contest, she did as well. Knowing full well that she had to make sure the girls had no doubt about the fact that she didn't have feelings for him, she also let out a frustrated sigh after Bloom, seeming as if Riven had pissed her off as well. She really did need to end anymore questions that arouse from the girls about Riven and she knew deep down that liking him was wrong especially since Daniel was such a great guy.

Musa finally pulled her attention away from Riven and back to the situation at hand. She turned around to see Techna freaking out a little as a dog licked her and then Brandon walked up to the girls and called the dog.

"Lady," Brandon called. "Lady, come sit girl," Musa, who was sure that Bloom was totally gah-gah over Brandon, looked right over to Bloom when he walked out and just as she had predicted her entire face seemed to light up.

"So you're sure you haven't seen her?" Musa asked as she turned back to Sky and questioned him with a hard look. Sure Stella wasn't exactly her favorite person right now, but she was still her friend and they did need to find her.

"You don't believe me?" Sky asked in a jesting tone trying to cover up his worry, not that it got by Musa.

"No, I do," Musa assured. "Just making sure," Sky nodded and was ready to ask if they needed any help to look for her when they all heard a command from a very scary looking old guy.

Apparently that was Cordatorta the terrible or horrible or something like that, but he wasn't too keen on Alfea girls visiting the boys during class hours. In essence he was the male version of Griselda, who was known to drag boys off of Alfea grounds if she found them doing something inappropriate, which was pretty much everything past holding hand.

The girls decided to leave and not get the boys in too much trouble. Besides, they still had the task of finding the princess of Solaria. "What now?" Flora said after they said bye to the guys.

"This is weird," Bloom said looking around Red Fountain aimlessly. Musa was sure that Sky would know where Stella was, but he didn't so that gave her and the rest of the girls some reason to worry. "Let's go to Magix,"

The girls nodded and headed off to Magix to maybe find Stella, but first the Black Lagoon Café. Musa looked around as Bloom tried to put some pieces together. "The invitation said to meet at the Black Lagoon Café,"

"My search engine couldn't find it," Techna said.

"We still haven't tried my search engine," Bloom said looking around at all the people in Magix.

"You have a search engine," Flora questioned with a skeptical look on her face when Musa remembered that her friend from back home was the daughter of a big restaurant and media mogul, she always knew the hottest places in the hottest cities. And since Magix was the central hub for a lot of chic parties, she figured Sky would want to take Stella somewhere she could give her a try. She pulled out her cell phone and sent a quick text over to Penelope Yuki. - _Black Lagoon Café. Every heard of it? -_

"Yeah and it's real easy to operate," Bloom said as she walked up to a random person and asked them if they ever heard to the mysterious café. After a second the girls realized what she was doing and decided that it was the last resort that they had to deal with. The girls walked everywhere, even around what was apparently Cloud Tower territory, as Musa found out by a witch with some serious attitude. Normally, Musa would have mouthed off, but they had a mission they needed to complete, but she did pull a bit of a bitch act and imply that the witch was fat and no matter how mean that witch was, she was till a teenage girl and she was self conscious like all teenage girls were. And Musa walked away a little happy that she put that witch in her place. Walking through the streets of Magix asking random people where some place that they were still unsure existed, was wasn't exactly Musa's idea of a good time and she would have much rather been out with the dance team girls, but for some reason Stella and all of her antics became somewhat endearing and Musa felt the need to find her friend.

Unfortunately, Stella and the Black Lagoon Café were yet to be seen.

"My feet are killing me," Flora complained as she rubbed her ankle. Maybe wearing platforms wasn't the best idea.

"Well my search engine hasn't heard of the place either," Musa said exasperatedly as she put her elbows on her knees as she and the rest of the girls gave up and sat down on the curb of a street in Magix. She closed her cell phone when she received a text back from Penelope Yuki. _– Sorry M, it either doesn't exist or doesn't matter – _

The girls looked to Musa and she explained. "Penelope Yuki is like the princess of all things hot in the club and restaurant scene, she hasn't heard of it," the girls nodded with upset looks. It looked like they had exhausted all of their resources.

"I don't understand, how nobody in Magix could have heard of this place," Bloom complained.

"Maybe somebody played a joke on Stella and it put her in a bad mood," Musa explained when she saw no other options.

"You know I think Musa's right, let's go back to Alfea

"No, just give me a minute to think," Bloom insisted.

"Bloom just because you took that potion doesn't mean you're in charge,

"I'm sorry if I care about our friend," Bloom insisted. Musa could feel an argument coming and it was the last thing they needed after hours of searching for Stella after she completely trashed their entire dorm. As if trying to hide from the impending argument, Musa folded her arms on her knees and put her head in her arms. She couldn't deal with this right now.

"Okay people let's relax," Flora said in a strict tone getting angry herself.

"Techna," Bloom said angrily.

"Bloom," Techna shot back. The two sounded like two year olds fighting and pulling hair.

"Did I hear you cats say you were looking for the Black Lagoon Café," The girls looked around to see a short fat guy walking around the corner. Musa looked over to him skeptically and felt a little uneasy about this. And who said 'cats' anymore? "Wow man that joint is like the hippest hip, you know what I'm saying,"

Seriously, who was this guy? It was like he had just stepped out of a bad 70's movie, but he knew where this café was so Musa kept her skepticism to herself and listened, the worst that could happen was that they would get the wrong place, but it was worth a try. "It's like totally underground, you cats have gotta check it out," he continued. "Though maybe you're not cool enough…"

"No, no we're cool we're super cool," Bloom insisted.

"Yeah, we rock, we were hip when hip wasn't hip," Musa said attempting to sound as loony as that guy did, and she kinda did. "Come on you've gotta tell us where this place is,"

"Hey I just had to make sure, you know how it is," he said and the girls pretended they understood what he meant. "You guys are alright," He finally gave them direction and the girls excitedly followed them happily as they were ecstatically to get some a lead on their mystery. When they turned to thank him he was gone, only arising more of the suspicion in Musa's mind.

The girls followed the directions "Awesome his directions were right,"

"Potion or no potion, I have a bad feeling about this," Techna said as they approached the oak tree that the mysterious man had mentioned.

The girls continued on and saw what appeared to be a cute little cottage. It was, as far as they could guess, the Black Lagoon café. Musa was both happy and uneasy about this. How would Prince Sky now about this place when someone like Penelope didn't? Sky never crossed her as the type of guy to go out and party all the time and he definitely didn't look like an expert on places to hang out, and even if he was, why would he take Stella here? It was so far removed from any nightlife, it made no sense, but it was a lead and they had to follow it. "When we get back to Alfea, you should update your search program," Musa joked to her roommate and it didn't look like it went over too well.

"My search program works fine," Techna defended. "It's this place that isn't right,"

"I agree with Techna," Flora said as she looked around the pervading area. "This place is very very wrong,"

"What do you mean?" Bloom asked looking at the big tree in front of her.

"This tree isn't giving off a life force," Flora said as she laid her hand upon the bark of the tree. "It's dead and it's been that way for a very long time," Musa was glad that she wasn't the only one who felt so weird about this place.

"You're sure about that?" Bloom questioned still trying not to lose hope about finding Stella.

Before she could answer, the door to the café opened and a strong gust of wind began to spread across the area, which was odd since it was a very calm day. "There is a change in the reality pressure, that means there's an illusion spell wearing off," Techna informed as the area changed back to it's original condition. The 'café' was actually an old dilapidated house that was in worse condition than their room back at Alfea. Musa looked around and hated to admit to herself or anyone else, but she was scared.

"I liked the illusion better," Musa said nervously. She had always hated places that looked like this, she was never able to go to haunted house and things like that because they looked like this. She rarely ever talked about it, but when she was four she was kidnapped from the palace's garden and her captors had her locked in a place like that for a few days. She remembered those three days vividly, although she wasn't abused while kidnapped, since the captors knew full well the punishment for harming the crown princess of nebula, but it was enough to keep her apprehensive about these types of environments. That was also one of the reasons her father kept her so close, she was kidnapped a few months after her mother passed and ever since then he father was very scared to see Musa go anywhere. Musa looked once more at the dreary house and followed reluctantly as her friends continued on. She needed to be brave.

"Well, there's no sense in turning back at this point," Bloom encouraged as they continued on towards the building. "Right?" The door was already opened a crack, but the girls proceeded inward being very aware of the fact that something could fall on them or that they could fall through something.

"Did you guys see that?" Bloom said as she stopped when they all noticed a quick movement in the house. This was beginning to fee like a horror movie. Musa could feel her heart rate quicken with fear as she tried as hard as she could to not show the fear in her face, if everyone else was able to deal with this, then so was she.

"For the record whose idea was it to go in there,"

"Do you think we should get outta here?" Flora proposed in an absolutely terrified voice. Again it gave Musa some comfort to know that her friends were just as scared as she was.

"If Bloom said it was the right move, then it has to be the right move," Musa said still looking up at the ceiling, still very perplexed by the place and really scared that the whole house would come crumbling down on her.

"Wait did you guys hear that just now," Techna asked sounding a bit paranoid, but there was something going on here.

"Yeah, it sounded like it came from up there," Musa said looking back up at the ceiling and looking towards the steps.

"It's about time you showed up," Said a familiar voice, Musa knew from the first word it was Stella. The girls turned around and saw the Solarian princess standing there completely unharmed and Musa was a little angry that she was in no danger. She had trashed their entire dorm, they had scoured Magix and thye went into the haunted house that she was now sure she would die in and Stella was just fine! It was annoying to say the least.

"Stella!" Bloom said with relief in her voice.

"Welcome," Stella said with the same malignant tone she had earlier. Even when Stella was at her bitchiest, she never sounded like that, which confirmed the thought in Musa's mind that there was some type of spell on Stella. Just then the door shut slammed behind them and Musa was reminded of a horror movie she was forced to watch with her friends. And it involved going into a scary house and never leaving. Suffice to say she was not comfy in the situation. "Now if you girls don't mind," Stella began with the same maniacal voice. "I'm taking my ring back and while I'm at it, I'm going to teach you little pixies a lesson,"

"What did she call us!" Musa yelled angrily, ignoring the fact that she was probably under some sort of spell. That was the thanks they got for wasting an entire day looking for her! She could have been out having fun right now, or she could be talking to Daniel since it was clear that they missed each other, but no she was here dealing with someone she really wanted to hit upside the head.

Stella then flew back and seemed to levitate in the air, a power Musa knew Stella didn't have. "Stella your aura is very negative right now," Flora said slowly and calmly trying not to further upset Stella. But, it didn't look like it was working since Stella conjured what looked like another raging witch ball.

"Look out," Bloom called when she realized that they were the targets of her attacks. Stella threw the attack and the girls immediately threw themselves in different directions to avoid the attack that exploded once it made contact with the floor. Musa quickly went behind a rickety old overturned table in an attempt to protect herself from her insane dorm mate. She looked at her leg and noticed that she had been hit a little by some of the aftershock of the attack, there was some bleeding on the back of her leg, but luckily that was about it. She and Techna sought safety there while Bloom and Flora huddled behind a broken beam.

"Power up Bloom," Techna advised from her spot behind the table knowing it was there only chance at a good defense.

"She can't they're pinned down," Musa said with concern in her voice when another attack knocked away the beam leaving a tiny barrier between Bloom and Flora and the militant fairy.

"All right then, I'm going in," Techna said with conviction and quickly powered up to her winx form. "Firewall shield," Techna said erecting a glowing green shield in front of her as she began to run across over to Bloom and Flora.

"You go Techna!" Musa cheered. She wanted to change to help, but she couldn't get a shield up and it would be no help if she was powered up with nothing to do, so she sat in her spot watching Techna, ready if she needed to help. Stella's attacks kept coming with them building power with each blow. Finally, Techna reached the other side of the room and took Flora and Bloom back to where she and Musa were. Just in time too, because Stella's attack came right after they left with Techna and it completely obliterated the beam they were hiding behind.

Stella began another witch like cackle summoning more attacks in both hands. "It's over pixies!"

"Friend or not she's gonna get Mused! (**6**) Musa said as her eyes narrowed, then realizing how dumb she just sounded. And of coarse everyone huddled behind the table right as she said that ridiculous comment.

"Mused? What's that?" Flora asked.

"Honestly, sounded better in my head," Musa said a bit embarrassed.

"Guys that's not Stella," Bloom warned. "You know who calls us pixies," Bloom then stood up from behind the protection of the table and looked 'Stella' straight in the eye. "Are you Icy or Darcy?"

"And the slowest horse crosses the finish line," Stella congratulated sarcastically. "Congratulations," she said as she turned her attacks to the floor, forming smoke around her. Then she transformed into Darcy. "Here's your prize," Just then, Icy and Stormy appeared next to their sister ready to fight.

"Let's go girls," Bloom ordered and the girls and they all changed into their winx forms. "What have you witches done with Stella!"

"She's right here," Icy said with an evil smile as she raised her arm to show Stella being held above them by what looked like very painful restraints. The witches laughed when they saw the looks of worry that were all over the fairy's faces.

"Stella," Bloom said in reaction to the sight in front of her. Musa now felt incredibly guilty for suggesting going back to Alfea when they couldn't find her, sure there was no way she could have known that this happened, but still.

"Sorry girls, the witches tricked me," Stella said with worry in her voice. It was clear that she felt bad about what the girls had clearly gone through that day.

"Don't worry about it Stella, just hang in there," Bloom encouraged as she and the rest of the faires had the daunting task of fighting the witches. "You better let her go now!" Bloom demanded acting as if she wasn't the least bit afraid of what might happen.

"We will Bloom, just as soon as you give us the ring of Solaria," Icy demanded back. This was reminding Musa a lot of when she was kidnapped, except her captors were killed on the spot when they were found and she was safely recovered tied up and crying in a locked closet. (**7**) "And you better hurry up because that mortal coil will keep squeezing her tighter and tighter until she goes 'pop',"

"So what's it gonna be Bloom?" Icy asked rather impatiently. "Stella or the ring?"

"Bloom don't give it to her," Stella begged with obvious pain in her voice. She looked like she would pass out any second.

"I say we fight them," Flora said sounding uncharacteristically belligerent of her.

"That's right, its four against three," Techna reasoned. "Let's take them down,"

Bloom glanced back at Stella and saw the pain she was in. Musa, who had yet to decide on what to do, thought it would probably be best if they just surrendered for now. As much as she didn't want to loose to the witches, she figured it would be best to cut their losses and just get outta there with Stella safe. But, then there was Musa's runaway mouth that usually got ahead of her and the angry that had built up inside of her against the witches managed to boil over and come out as a threat. "We're gonna make you witches sorry you ever heard of Alfea,"

"You tell them Musa," Flora said egging Musa on. The witches didn't look scared at all and Bloom was the only one to notice that the restraints kept getting tighter and tighter around Stella that she would be dead soon.

"Everybody stop!" Bloom begged as she changed back to her normal stated, much to everyone's surprise. "Okay the wings are coming off, we can't put Stella in anymore danger, you guys win this time," Bloom said handing off the ring to Bloom.

"Bloom no!" Stella begged.

"Good decision, I knew we could count on the soft heart of a fairy," Icy said manically and with a snap of her fingers, Stella was free from her restraints. "We did it girls, the scepter is ours." Then Icy activated the ring and with a flash the witches were gone.

"That was a good decision Bloom," Musa said once the girls were outside. Everyone was pretty exhausted, and going back to Alfea was the only thing they had on their minds.

"Thanks," Bloom said. The girls talked on their way back to Alfea, but were immediately silenced when they finally reached their dorm and saw the state that it was in.

"What happened here!" Stella screamed when she looked around the common room and ran to her's to see the damage was worse there.

"I almost forgot about this," Musa said dejectedly as she surveyed the damaged once again. Stella, who had not known anything about this freaked out to see her room and them vehemently apologized for all the trouble she caused after the girls explained what happened that day.

"Oh forget about it," Musa insisted. "We got you back safe, that's all that matters, I'm taking a nap," She said as she walked around the wreckage and over to her room.

"I'll get working on a spell to fix this!" Stella said very determined. Musa simply nodded and walked to her room for a nap.

It had been a long day.

* * *

_1.Ever notice she hasn't talked about him?_

_2. I loved my easy bake oven when I was little!! That was and still is the extent of my cooking ability_

_3. .As you will probably be able to see when you read further, Stella pissed me off in this episode_

_4.Musa actually admits to liking Riven in this part, but I cant have that happen, not yet anyway (hint hint) so I had to tweek the scene._

_5. Fuddy? She sounds like my 1__st__ grade teacher. _

_6. I was actually embarrassed when I read this so I had to make it so Musa was embarrassed too. I mean come on!_

_7. Musa being kidnapped as a child adds some more history to her, I felt like throwing that in. _

_Oh and I forgot this last chapter – _

_3 . Where did they get that ship? It was broken and shot down and all of a sudden it was fixed. _

_Anyway, secret guardian is next – _

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	6. Secret Guardian

_I never really liked this episode and since nothing remotely interesting happened, I added a bunch of scenes to spice things up. _

**Secret Guardian**

"Are you okay Stella?" Musa asked as she and Stella left their magical defense class taught by Ms. Griselda. Going to a class taught by her was enough to elicit this question, but Stella had taken a real beating today since everything in class was based on drawing from your magical source of power and Stella's source was currently in the hands of the witches.

"A keek bug beat me," Stella repeated for probably the hundredth time.

"You were off your game, I wouldn't worry about it," Musa encouraged, even though it looked like Stella was fine, Musa could tell she had been a bit down since she lost her ring to the witches. They walked through though the grand corridor into the Alfea quad and began on their way over to their dorm.

"Well you beat a junior," Stella complained. "So _you_ have nothing to worry about, my grade is hanging by a thread,"

"That's true," Musa confirmed. "But, it's probably because you're Stella minus your ring, when we get it back I'm sure you'll be back to your old self,"

"I hope so," Stella said perking up. "Those witches really need to get a life, I mean come on they're seniors and they have nothing better to do than annoy us? Talk about pathetic,"

Musa laughed as the two walked back over to their dorm when Musa's phone went off. She grabbed it out of her pocket and was ready to pick up when Stella playfully grabbed her phone. "Stella, not funny give it back," Musa said seriously hoping it wasn't Daniel calling. She was now determined on not mentioning Daniel until her friends were sure she didn't have any feelings for Riven. Musa didn't want them to think that anything was going on with some other guy while she had a boyfriend. So she would make sure whatever there was with Riven wasn't visible and then tell her friends.

"Ooh la la," Stella said looking at the name that appeared on the screen. "Who is Nate? Boyfriend maybe?"

Relived that it was just Nate calling, Musa smiled and allowed Stella to have her fun. "More like best friend," Musa said trying to take her phone back from Stella, who wasn't convinced by Musa's argument, and was giving her a skeptical look. "He's dating my other best friend Leslie and stop giving me that look; he's like my brother,"

"Oh well, I'll leave you to talk to Nate," Stella said handing Musa back her phone. "I'll be in my room, if you need me," Stella finished as she happily walked back to the dorm as if nothing was bothering her. Musa swore she was like a five year old sometimes, upset beyond belief about something one minute and the next she was hoping along as if nothing could ever go wrong.

"Bye Stel," Musa said as she turned around and walked further into the quad. She picked up her phone at last, just in time to because Nate was ready to get her voicemail. "Hello!" Musa exclaimed happily. She had been in a very good mood over the last couple of days, probably because things between her and Daniel had managed to smooth over and she hadn't seen Riven since the day they lost Stella, so she had no mixed feelings to deal with. Sure, there were her dreams that were causing her to some doubts about her feelings for Daniel, but whatever she felt for Riven was a crush. She would ride it out and Daniel never had to hear about or get hurt over something of such little consequence.

"You seem awfully happy," Nate pointed out in an equally amused tone.

"It's been a good week,"

"I bet," Nate began. "Daniel's been walking around humming, it's a little unsettling for me, but hey the guy is always in a good mood now,"

"Aww," Musa said happily. The whole long distance thing was a strain on both of them but it was god to hear that he was happy.

"How's dance?"

"Good, Karen says hello," Musa joked. Karen and Nate had a very brief, very stupid fling when Nate and Leslie were on 'a break' and ever since then they had been a bit awkward with each other, which was odd since Leslie and Karen managed to remain friends.

"Funny," Nate spat out with sarcasm. "You know, you don't see me pulling out skeletons from you're closet,"

"That is because I don't have any," Musa pointed out, she had managed to remain relativity innocent when growing up in a world where money could buy you in and out of all the trouble in the universe.

"Please that might work on someone like Penelope or you're new Alfea friends," Nate teased. "But, remember I've known you for almost as long as Daniel has,"

"And you should remember, that I have managed to keep a clean record,"

"So have I," Nate began. "I mean it's not spotless, but the messes have cleaned up,"

Musa laughed and continued into the quad and sat down by the tree she always sat down at. "Yeah, I'll bet how's Devon,"

"Good, we miss you, but we're getting though it," Nate commented with a sly laugh. "And Alfea, please tell me you've been good. Not partying too hard?"

"Again, let's remember I am the one with the clean record," Musa reminded. "Besides Alfea is actually a lot different then Devon. Partying goes on, but not too much and drinking is pretty much none existent." Back at home, Musa was accustomed to drinking at every occasion, shopping, hanging out, manicures, any activity possible was usually accompanied by a martini. Not that she really took part in much of that, but most of her friends did enjoy martinis as if they were water, not that they were constantly drunk or anything. It was actually a talent when Musa thought about it, nobody really got out of control except for the out and out party animals, but other than that it was more a social thing. They had the means to do whatever they wanted, and most of them did. "It's actually really nice, and you know what's weird, you brought up Penelope and I actually just started talking to her again."

"I'm sure it is, and yeah she was telling us about it last night," Nate said. He knew Musa wasn't really a big drinker, she did enjoy the occasional martini with her friends, but she usually went to a party to dance, not drink.

"Last night?"

"We were actually just partying with Penelope last night, she got hammered," Nate explained.

"I'm not surprised, that girl needs to slow down," Musa said recalling Penelope's party girl ways.

"Yeah really," Nate said in a jesting tone. "She needs to stick with Isabelle's motto on drinking,"

Musa had almost forgotten about this little mantra that Isabelle practically swore by. She said it every time someone had a little too much to drink, which was usually any night they went out to party, as a motto to stick by. For a few seconds Musa forgot it, but it came back to her and she couldn't help but say it proudly into the phone. "One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor!" (**1**) Musa said and immediately began to laugh at how funny it was, eliciting a few stares from fellow students in the quad that heard her burst into laughter after counting hard liquor.

"That's the one," Nate confirmed with a laugh. "Hey, I should get going, I've got class in a few minutes. But, I need to tell you something, it's actually the reason I called,"

"Sounds serious," Musa said sarcastically noting the carefree tone in Nate's voice.

"I might be coming to Magix in a few week," Nate said and heard silence at the other end of the phone.

"Uhh with who?" Musa said after she swallowed the lump in her throat. She was not ready for her two worlds to collide.

"Probably just me," Nate explained. "My dad is meeting with some of his old buddies and is dragging me along so I figured I could see you."

"Sounds great!" Musa said excitedly but felt guilt at the same time. Was it was bad thing that she didn't want to see her boyfriend? Well, she wanted to see him, just not here.

"Yeah, but its not for sure, just throwing it out there,"

"Well call if you are coming, it'll be fun!"

"Yeah, okay," Nate agreed. "Okay I gotta go before I'm late for Minchin's class again,"

"Oh good luck," Musa said feeling bad for Nate. Mrs. Minchin (**2**) was one of the meanest professors at Devon, she strongly resembled Griselda except she was probably worse.

"Thanks, talk to you later M, bye,"

"Bye," Musa said hanging up her phone and walking over to her dorm room.

* * *

Musa walked into her dorm and heard the girls talking in Bloom's room so she headed over to her room. There she saw Bloom sitting in front of a large book reading something. "Here it is again," Bloom exclaimed as she leafed through the book.

"Okay so give us the 4-1-1 Bloom," Musa said sitting down on Flora's bed and listened to Bloom explain everything she had learned about Stella's ring.

"Do you know about this Stella?" Bloom asked to Stella.

"Well yeah, I know about all that starlight stuff," Stella said a little defensively hoping she didn't sound completely ignorant. "But the other stuff makes me think I should have it reappraised."

"Think this is why the witches might want your ring, it might have major powers or something," Bloom urged.

"In that case we better go get it back," Flora suggested.

"We have to get it back, I'm like totally useless with out it," Stella wined.

"That's true, in magical defense class she got beaten up by a keek bug," Musa joked recalling what happened earlier that day. When Bloom finished explaining what she found, the girls parted and went to class.

Musa however did not have any other classes left of the day so she decided to go practice some of her dance routines since they were performing one of their routines soon. She stayed in the dance gym for a while and when she finished there she realized she still had the rest of the afternoon to herself.

* * *

She had yet to go explore the lovely enchanted forest. It was talked about a lot and she wanted to see it, that and Silent Falls. Musa decided to walk over to the end of campus and wander for a bit, she was never really allowed to do that when she was at home since her father demanded that palace guards know where she was every second that she was at the palace. Plus, she figured that if she did get lost she could just call Techna and get directions back.

It was a really nice day, but Musa looked up and saw clouds were starting to gather, she smiled happily when she thought it might rain. She loved the smell of rain and so far, she had not experienced it since it was sunny almost everyday in Magix. The slight calm and feeling of serenity in the air was a tell tale sign that she was getting the rain she hoped for. Musa walked over to a large rock that sat next to the edge of the lake and took of her shoes and let her feet skim the top of the water.

She was beginning to love Magix, everything about it was amazing. There was the awesome night life in the city and then just miles out of the city, the atmosphere was calm and peaceful and with beautiful places like this, Musa never wanted to leave. Just then she heard what sounded vaguely like a leva bike. Musa ignored it for a minute, but then from out of the woodwork, walked Riven not noticing or choosing not to notice her sitting there. She took the chance to appreciate what was before her, he was built like a Greek god, his arms were amazing and she could faintly see abs from the outline of his clothes. What was it about him that made her so taken and flustered, whatever it was, Musa was beginning to like it.

"Talk about constantly having a dark cloud looming around you," Musa said sarcastically as the sun became covered by gray clouds. Since Riven always seemed to be in a bad mood when she saw him, she figured it made perfect sense that she say it, but he didn't look up and for a second, Musa swore that he didn't hear her since he was a good distance from her.

"Blaming me for the weather?" Riven asked not looking over to her, but that comment made it known to Musa that he noticed that she was there. She then looked over to him and his face was lacking it's usually iciness. Instead a smile that he was probably trying to stifle was peaking through the scowl.

"Actually, I kind of like the weather like this," Musa said as she leaned back on her arms, outstretching her body, which managed to catch Riven's attention as his mouth went dry. She said it as if almost implying that she liked it when he was around. Almost. "It's pretty peaceful,"

"Just wait for the thunder, princess," Riven said mockingly as he walked along the water's edge acting as nonchalant as he possibly could, throwing in as much arrogance as he could. If he was going to push her away, he was going to do it right. "We'll see how peaceful and happy you feel and how long it takes for you to go running home when it starts to thunder,"

Musa rolled her eyes and ignored Riven. She was sure that nobody bought the whole 'I just don't care' routine and yet he continued to keep it up and he ended up looking like a jackass to people who just met him, like her. But Musa figured that if he managed to make friends with such great guys, he had to be pretty nice too, but something was holding that part of him back when others were around. And now, Musa was bent on bringing it out in him. She was ready to send back a sassy remark when she felt a few rain drops hitting her face.

She looked over to Riven who had noticed as well. He looked up and they got into another one of their staring contests. Nobody was around and they could easily talk to each other the way both of them wanted to and yet there was something holding the both of them back.

Instead of saying anything, Musa stood on the rock and carefully jumped off landing gracefully onto the ground. "As much fun as this is," Musa said with a genuine smile to Riven, who was in complete awe of her, "I think I should get back before I catch a cold,"

Riven nodded and walked over to his leva bike and started the engine. He then shouted to Musa who stopped and turned around and looked him square in the eye as if challenging him. "Get on," Riven commanded from his seat on his leva bike as the rain began to fall harder and it was clear that it was not letting up anytime soon. He may have resolved to not speak to her, but he was a hero in training and this did count as being somewhat heroic. Or that's what he kept telling himself.

"What?" Musa said not realizing that he was talking to her, but there was nobody else around.

"Did I stutter? Get on or get soaked," Riven spat out but no matter how hard he was trying to hide a smile, Musa could see one forming along his face. It didn't really make much sense, she was going to get soaked either way since his leva bike lacked a roof of any kind, but Musa was not about to pass up the first nice thing she had ever seen Riven do.

Musa nodded and got on the back of his leva bike. Musa wrapped her arms around Riven's body, feeling a tingle go through her entire body as she held onto his. She had no idea however, that Riven was being even more strongly affected by her. She had never been on one of these before and she was a bit scared that the second they started moving, she'd fly off the back. "Hold on," he said curtly and began to speed over to Alfea.

The rain began to fall faster on the two, but Riven managed to handle the speed and the weather conditions just fine. They finally got to Alfea a few minutes later and Musa promptly got of the bike and handed the extra helmet back to Riven. "Thanks," Musa said.

"You realize it's still raining," Riven said with his helmet still on, he had kept it on so she couldn't see how effected by her he was, plus she couldn't see him gazing at the clothes that were now stuck to her body showing every curve.

Musa nodded and turned to walked away, but right before she did, she decided to say goodbye. "Bye Riven," she said sweetly almost mocking him and his constant gloomy attitude. "And thanks,"

"You're welcome," Riven said genuinely hoping the roar of his engine would overpower what he had just said. He had forgotten that he was talking to the musical fairy who had picked up on not only what he had just said but the tone in which he had said them.

* * *

Feeling very happy, Musa turned around to go inside and heard Riven sped off as she did. Once inside and sure that Riven couldn't see her, she jumped around like a giddy little child in the empty hallway. After she had gotten that out of her system, she walked calmly into her room where Techna gave her a skeptical look. "Where were you?"

"I went over to the forest and got caught in the rain," Musa said unable to get the smile to off of her face and she was unconsciously humming a tune to one of her favorite songs. Techna managed to pick up on the mood and wondered how someone could be so happy about being soaking wet from the rain.

"What has you so giddy?" Techna questioned.

"I just like the rain sometimes," Musa said happily as she walked over to her window and looked out in the direction of Red Fountain, thinking about her unexpected rendez vous with Riven. She then tore herself out of the thought knowing she couldn't let Techna know or even have a hint toward her feelings for Riven, not that Techna would know that she had seen him there. "I should get changed, I'm soaked," Musa said still smiling uncontrollably.

"Alright," Techna said skeptically as Musa walked into her bathroom.

When Musa got out of her bathroom she heard all the girls discussing Stella's ring in Bloom's room. She got dressed and went over to the room and took her place against the wall, just as she had when they discussed what the name of their group would be.

"How are we going to get my ring back?" Stella asked worriedly as she paced around Bloom and Flora's room. "I can't do anything without it,"

"And we have that major quiz in spells tomorrow," Techna said only making Stella even more nervous.

"That quiz counts for almost half our grade," Flora said not helping to calm her down. "We have to get your ring back or you'll have no chance to pass,"

"I got it!" bloom said excitedly. "We can cast a hypnosis spell on the witches while they're sleeping and then we can get them to giving us the ring,"

"Oh yea, that's perfect for revenge on the witches. But wait a sec, detail, how are we gonna get into cloud tower?" Stella asked.

"I know where to download a map of the interschool tunnels," Techna said adding to their plan.

"We'll go right after light out and be back before everyone wakes up," Bloom said excitedly as the plan came together.

The girls waited until lights out and carefully snuck out of their dorm via the balcony and flew off Alfea grounds. Once they reached the forest, they used the trees for cover until Techna came across an interschool tunnel entranced and led the girls in. The tunnels were like caves, dark, damp and very uninviting.

Once in the cave, Techna pointed the girls in the correct direction, and since there weren't many twists and turns in the cave, it was pretty self explanatory when it came to navigating.

"Techna, where's you map," Flora asked worriedly when she realized that Techna was guiding them around the interschool tunnels with no map.

"After I downloaded it, I memorized it," she answered as if memorizing whole maps was the most normal thing in the world.

"I'm still surprised she memorized the cafeteria menu for the rest of the school year," Bloom said as they made their way through the dark cave.

"So Musa, where were you all day?" Stella asked after a couple moments of silence. There was a clear tension in the air since finding her ring in cloud tower and then stealing it back from the witches was a daunting task. "I haven't seen you since like this morning,"

"Playing in the rain," Techna answered with a slight giggle.

"I wasn't playing in the rain," Musa corrected as a smile grew on her face from her encounter with Riven. "I was taking a walk through the forest earlier and chilling by the lake and it started to rain, but I like the rain so I took my time getting back," she explained conveniently leaving out that she had met Riven there and he was the one to bring her back to Alfea.

"Ugh the rain," Stella said as if repulsed by the very thing that help keep the entire universe alive. "It always frizzes my hair, I can't stand it when it rains, I mean I guess I could use some straightening serum, but that always tends to get sticky and who wants stick hair. But I guess it would work if - " Stella began to babble when Bloom cut her off.

"I think that's the entrance!" she said excitedly. She ran over to what she looked like a door into cloud tower and sure enough it was.

"We're here," Flora exclaimed sounding a little confused expecting the journey to cloud tower to be harder. "This was easy,"

"Almost too easy," Techna said suspiciously as she looked around the school.

"So this is it?" Musa asked looking around the school. She was half expecting to see monsters running around the halls and a melody of witches cackling seeping thought the school. She was expecting this place to look more like a haunted house, but it looked more like the old house that Stella was taken to when the witches took her ring. All she could see was a bunch of different winding staircases.

"It's not as scary as I thought it would be," Flora said verbalizing everything Musa was thinking.

"I think it may be creepier than it looks," Bloom warned.

"There room in on the second floor," Techna said pulling the girls back into the task at hand.

"Let's go and get'em," Bloom said as she picked a set of stairs and began to climb them. Musa looked around the halls and noticed there were no witches wandering the halls. That was probably because it was midnight, but weren't witches most active at night? Or was it bats? That was when Musa's mind starting drifting to all the stereotypes about witches, surely there was one witch in this place that didn't want to pluck off her wings. (**3**) She continued to think about that when they finally got to the witches' room.

It was pretty much just what Musa expected, except she wondered why all three of them shared the same room. They all had strong personalities, how was it possible they could they live in the same room together. She pondered they thought as they looked around their room. Musa immediately went into the closet to see if there were truly skeletons were in there as Techna said a lost object spell, since the objects spell took awhile they all decided to poke around the witches' things.

"What's this?" Musa said walking into what looked like Darcy's closet, picking up something that looked like a baton. "Think this is for cheerleading," Musa said laughing at the thought of the witches cheerleading.

"Looks more like a whip," Stella said looking at it. "Kinky,"

"Thanks for image Stella," Musa said not as interested in the baton anymore. All of a sudden a bunch spikes poked out of the baton and Musa quickly put it down.

Finally after a few more minutes, Stella found her ring and the girls exited the dorm room as quick as possible. The girls then followed Bloom out of the room; expect they weren't going back the way they came. "I just wanna check this room out, it has the only other book that goes with the other one from the restricted vault,"

Musa and the rest of the girls went into the library and began to look around at the books. While Musa poked around the library looking at different books that they had. 'Covens and creatures' Musa read and opened to book and saw gruesome pictures of how giant bugs were eating smaller bugs. After quickly shutting the book, Musa walked back over to Bloom who was shuffling through a book with her name on it. They had a minute till the interschool tunnel closed so all the girls were pretty nervous. Just then Musa heard Bloom let out a shriek and the book she was looking at came alive.

"The wall is hot, there must have been a dark magic spell used," Techna said as the girls gathered and door to the library disappeared. She tried to shoot through the wall, but it only appeared to make the wall even thicker. It was clear that someone knew that they were in the school and were now trying to mess with them.

"Now what?" Musa asked looking at the door that seemed even stronger after Techna tried to bust through it.

"Power convergence," Techna asked and the girls quickly transformed and converged their powers and managed to keep the doors open and they ran through the hole and into a hallway. Musa and Techna led the pack through the hallway that seemed to be never ending and it took a couple second but Techna realized what was going on. "I think this is some type of illusion spell,"

The girls finally stopped to catch their breathes when they all realized that they were going to have to figure out another way to get out of the school. "You memorized the map, didn't you?" Flora asked Techna as she tried to catch her breath.

"Yes, but this isn't on the map, it's as if it's changed."

"Hey does anybody hear that," Bloom interrupted when she hear a low screeching sound coming closer and closer.

"Red Catapow," Musa exclaimed as the red creatures began to surround the group of fairies. "We had those in my realm,"

"Are they bad," Bloom asked nervously.

"They got into my friend's castle," Musa began.

"What happened?" Bloom asked nervously as the bugs began to surround.

"I never saw her again," Musa failed to mention that the creatures only sent her to the hospital and it was Hazel's parents that moved her to a separate school, but this way the girls would be more cautious around the bugs. "One bit and we're done for,"

They put up a fire shield and it seemed to working for a few minutes, until it looked like the bugs were actually getting stronger until Flora finally summoned the natural predators of the Red Catapow and when it finished stomping on the bugs it was gone. Flora looked very proud that they could banish the pests while being environmentally sound.

After Musa took a deep relaxing breath thankful that the bugs were gone, but a couple seconds later they began to reform and create a huge slimly monster. "Wait till you get close then strike,"

"This is supposed to be the grand ball room," Techna said looking around the small potion room.

"Stella, look at all the fire," Flora scolded.

"Hey when it comes to bugs, you can never have enough fire," Stella said. "Haha good one Stel," she told herself. Then the fire began to surround the girls.

"Way to go," Musa said as the fire began to surround them. The whole situation seemed very hopeless.

"Bloom what are you doing," Stella asked as her best friend walked into the fire with a blank stare on her face. "Bloom!"

"We have to stop here!" Techna said urgently hoping that one of the girls would find a way to stop Bloom since it was clear that Bloom was planning on walking through fire. But, miraculously Bloom managed to survive the fire, in fact she opened a portal that opened into the interschool tunnel.

* * *

The girls finally got back to Alfea and found that they were extremely tired after staying up all night and wandering about cloud tower. And the feeling of fatigue had become very familiar to Musa since she had been lacking sleep due to dance, Daniel and everything else going on in her life. And as if it weren't bad enough that she probably would only feel better after getting sleep she didn't have time for, the girls were also stripped of their powers because they went onto Cloud Tower grounds and they got a nice stern talking to by Faragonda and Griselda the second they got back to Alfea in the morning. (**4**)

The girls sat silently in Stella's room after they were given their punishments, some more upset then other. While Musa and Stella seemed to be looking on the bright side, no powers meant no classes and that meant she had time to catch up on everything she had put on the backburner. Bloom and Flora were pretty upset about everything since they would have to make everything up and Bloom was more concerned about the witches coming to get some sort of revenge on them.

Musa sat on a chair and mindlessly pondered how ever since she got to Alfea she had been getting in trouble. The first day she had gone to Magix and broke curfew and then there was the whole situation with the Mystro and the girls messing up his kitchen and hosing down Griselda. But, it wasn't really her fault any of those things happened, not that she was blaming the girls, but she had never been the one to get in trouble for anything. At Devon Prep it was always Nate, Daniel and Brian that were stirring things but with the occasional help of the twins and Duke. She and Leslie has managed to stay on the right side of the disciplinary system.

Most of the time.

It was hard to forget the time that they all went in together to play a prank on headmaster Charleston. They had snuck into his office and placed a number of childish pranks all over ad then they spied on a staff meeting and managed to figure out a way to sabotage the entire school assembly and the whole prank scheme ended when Nate and Daniel hotwired his car and it ended up at the bottom of the school's pool. It was probably one of the best days of her life, but for months after they were all in detention and they were lucky they weren't kicked out of the school.

Musa smiled at the memory and went back to her room to go get some sleep before she needed to get to dance practice. "I think I'm gonna get some sleep," Musa said and walked over to her room. She didn't hear any response from the girls since they were all pretty preoccupied with their own things, but she went back to her room and napped for a while.

A couple hours later, Karen came knocking at the door to the girls' dorm. "Oh hey Karen," Stella said cheerfully. She as supposed to be in Stella's class, but since Stella was held back a year because of the potion lab incident, she wasn't. But, the two did know each other. "Looking for Musa?"

"Yeah, we have practice and she's late," Karen said with a rather serious tone.

"Oh okay, I'll get her," Stella said sensing Karen's tone and not wanting to push her mood any further.

Stella walked into Musa's room where the musical princess was in a peaceful slumber and woke her up abruptly. "You better get out there, she doesn't seem very happy,"

"Why not?" Musa said trying to get her dance clothes on as fast as possible.

"No idea, but I would hurry," Stella said as Musa threw on a shirt and ran out the door. She saw Karen and sensed the anger so she stayed quiet. Was Karen upset because she was late?

"So what did you do yesterday," Karen said as they got out to the quad breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"What?" Musa asked noting the accusing tone in Karen's voice.

"Don't think I didn't see him dropping you off yesterday," Karen said disappointedly. She had seen Musa get dropped off by some mysterious Red Fountain guy and she had thought the worst. "Rainy day rendez vous? Is this why nobody knows about Daniel, so you can cheat on -"

"Whoa slow down, you have no idea what you're talking about,"

"Why were you with him?" Karen asked being uncharacteristically bossy that day.

"What does it matter to you," Musa said getting rather upset. She already had this argument with Daniel, why was she having it with Karen. "You have no idea what you're talking about and – ,"

"I saw you get off his bike all hot and wet," Karen began in a disappointed voice. There were so many girls that cheated on their boyfriends, but she never thought Musa would be one of them. "Then you practically skipped into school, seems a lot more giddy than a person would be if someone gave them a ride,"

"I don't know what you saw, but I was stuck in the forest when it began to rain, and I was perfectly fine walking back by myself but he offered and I didn't feel like getting a cold so will you just drop it!"

"You seem awfully defensive," Karen pointed out calmly while Musa was fuming at the accusations.

"Well, I'm sick of being questioned when it comes to my fidelity," Musa ranted. "God do you think I am so pathetic that I'm going to fall for the first guy that smiles at me?" Then Musa stopped and realized that was exactly what happened, not that she would ever let anyone know that. "When have I ever given reason to be questioned like that!"

"I'm just repeating what I saw and it seemed a little more than innocent," Karen said not sure how to answer. Musa wasn't the type of person to cheat so she did have a point. But, Karen knew a guilty face when she saw one and she had known Musa for too long to know that there wasn't something going on, but maybe it wasn't what she thought. There could have been a million reasons for whatever happened that day, it was probably best to drop it.

"Well it wasn't," Musa said curtly.

"Okay then, let's go practice," Karen said still not believing Musa was telling the truth.

"Sounds good to me," Musa said as she put a smile on her face and walked into the dance practice.

Musa walked into practice realizing there was only so long she could dance around the secret she was hiding from her friends, her boyfriend and ultimately, herself.

* * *

_1. My best friend says this all the time and it is so true. Funny stuff. _

_2 .Ms. Minchin is the horrible etiquette teacher in the novel "A Little Princess" I love love love that book. _

_3. Anyone else not too cool with the stereotype thing with the witches and the faires?_

_4. As I said earlier, I hate this episode. It is way too Bloom based and it's boring so I cut the whole Cloud Tower thing short and added my own fun. _

_Next up – Grounded! Boys and girls party together in an empty school! _

_xoxo  
__princessm_

* * *


	7. Grounded

_I feel like from this point on the story will get somewhat more intricate – this chapter sets up for the next few…_

**Grounded**

Musa and Karen had been at odds since their little argument the other day and since then neither of them seemed to want to apologize. It was probably because they were both too full of pride. But, Musa tried to not let it affect her as she walked out of her morning dance practice with bag in hand.

"Musa, over here," yelled a familiar voice. Musa turned to see all of her friends walking in the direction of Ms. Faragonda's office.

"What's up guys?" Musa asked after she caught up to the group.

"We are going to confront Ms. Faragonda," Stella said confidently, although the other

girls did not share in the confidence that Stella had.

"Confront?" Musa asked.

"We figure she can't keep a hold on our powers forever so asking for them back couldn't hurt," Stella explained.

"Actually Stella, this venture only has a 22 percent chance of success and it has a 48 percent chance of actually worsening the situation," Techna warned.

"Oh pish posh," Stella excused with a wave her hand. "I'm sure we can get our powers back, she loves me and I'm sure my puppy dog eyes will bail us outta this one,"

"So I'm guessing the puppy dog eyes didn't work when you blew up potions lab last year," Musa pointed out.

"Hey what's the harm in trying," Bloom agreed with Stella. "As long as we don't make this situation any worse, we'll be good," The girls were then silenced as when they got in front of Faragonda's door and knocked slightly hoping that she wasn't in.

"Come in," Said Ms. Faragonda as all the girls walked in and lined up in front of her desks. Musa's hopes in getting her powers back fell when she saw Griselda standing in the office as well. This would have been a lot easier if it were just Ms. Faragonda in her office.

"So umm we were wondering," Stella began but suddenly lost her train of thought when Ms. Griselda gave her a hard look.

"We came in here so we could maybe," Bloom began hoping to have more luck in asking for this favor, but also came up blank.

"Umm, Griselda," Flora began after Bloom and Stella chickened out. "We were just wondering when we might get out powers back,"

"Your little field trip to Cloud Tower was unacceptable not to mention dangerous," She said sternly and from there Musa pretty much knew she would not be getting her powers back any time soon. "You were lucky you weren't turned into jumping beans and sent to the interrealm circus. You won't be getting your powers back anytime soon, but that's only the beginning of your punishment."

A loud clamor came from the shocked fairies when they learned that being completely useless all day was just the beginning of their punishment. "What's the rest of it!" Flora exclaimed verbalizing what everyone was thinking.

"You may not leave campus for the next two days,

"Ugh, we have to veg out all weekend, not exactly a punishment Ms. G," Stella said with a bit of sarcasm that Griselda was obviously not happy with.

"Stella!" Techna scolded knowing that the princess was pushing it and would now probably get them even more work to do.

Then with an unusual smile on her face, Griselda summoned some magic and a few cleaning implements appeared. Musa looked at them and figured out what task awaited them this weekend. "There will be no vegging out, you will clean this entire school from basement to belfry, using these cleaning implements," Griselda finished then walked over and handed a broom to Stella. "Here you are Miss Stella, you're new best friend,"

Musa looked over to Techna who was just told that she would not have a manual for this job and felt so bad when she saw Techna's face. Normally Musa would think that someone upset by not having a huge manual to read was weird, but Techna loved organization and knowing what she was doing, and by the look on her face, it looked like she had lost all hope. "Don't worry Techna, it's not that complicated," Musa assured. Sure she herself had never cleaned more than her room on occasion, but how hard could this possibly be?

"Yeah the only manual we'll need is manual labor," Flora joked although nobody really caught on to it.

"Leave no paperweight undusted, now get to work," Ms. Griselda said sternly when she saw the girls beginning to talk and joke amongst themselves. The girls became rigid and stopped talking suddenly at the command. They all silently grabbed the cleaning utensils and went on their way to cleaning the entire school.

* * *

Musa, Bloom and Stella took the first lecture hall while Flora and Techna decided to clean the main entrance. Cleaning, a task Musa thought was going to be a snap, was becoming a very tiring task. The school was huge, consisting of 5 lab rooms, 11 lecture halls and a bunch more classrooms, and cleaning all of them was a daunting task even with five girls. She had only finished one half of the seats in the lecture hall and already she felt like she needed a nap, not to mention he back was killing her from all the difficult angles she had to bend into to clean all the surfaces in the room.

Not to mention Stella had decided to sit this one out and look at herself in the mirror. "How about a little help Stella," Musa said as she wiped the sweat off her forehead. This plus the huge workout she just got at dance was beginning to really wear her out and with that her patience was also wearing thin and Stella had a knack at pushing her sometimes.

"Yeah," Bloom agreed. "This is sorta your fault,"

"My fault?" Stella asked sweetly as she closed her compact mirror and shoved it in her bag.

"If you hadn't opened your big yap trap –," Musa began.

"You both laughed," Stella pointed out as she searched through her bag and pulled out a nail file and began work on filing down any imperfections on her nails.

"Come on Stel, just grab a scrub brush," Musa demanded getting a little sick of Stella's antics especially since now she had to deal with not only Stella but and entire school that needed cleaning.

"Uh blisters are my enemy,"

"Wear gloves!"

"Ugh gloves with a tank top!"

"Oh that's a really good point, I hadn't even thought of that," Bloom said sarcastically as she began to pour soap into a bucket of water.

"Thank you Bloom," Stella said not picking up on Bloom's sarcasm. "Look getting dirty is simply not in makeup, sorry,"

"You're not the only princess here you know Stella," Musa reminded. She too was a princess and she managed to step off her royal pedestal and clean to help out the rest of the girls, why couldn't Stella?

"Maybe, but on Solaria, royalty and suds don't – ," Stella began before getting cut off by a huge wave of water coming at her from Bloom's pale. In a second the princess was soaked in soapy water from head to toe.

"What were you saying Stella," Bloom said as Stella stood a bit shell shocked that Bloom had actually just poured water all over her, while Musa stood cracking up with laughter at the sight of Stella dripping wet. "Oh there's some for you too Musa," Bloom warned

"What? No!" Musa said looking up and seeing nothing but water in her view and a millisecond later feeling it all over her face. The cold water hit her face and it did serve to wake her up a bit and as soon as she wiped the water out of her eyes, she picked up her pale and looked at Bloom. "You're still dry,"

"Yeah Bloom and that's hardly fair," Stella said grabbing what was meant to her pale of water and at the same time the two princesses drenched Bloom with soapy water. From that point on all cleaning had seized and it was officially play time in the lecture hall. Musa, who was winning the water fight, managed to slip away from the scene for a second and grab the hose that they were using to fill up their pale and bring it into the school. Sure it was against the rules, but so was making a mess when you were supposed to be cleaning and really, what was Griselda going to do to further their punishment, it was already pretty bad.

After an hour of making a huge mess, Musa lay on the table while Stella and Bloom were sitting on the floor nearby, she closed her eyes for a second, she was tired and the thought of having to go back to work was hardly appealing. Musa then let her thoughts drift around when they stopped and she began thinking about Daniel. She hadn't seen him since she had gone home and ever since she discovered she had a crush on Riven, him coming to visit was out of the question. But, she still wanted to see him, maybe seeing him would be enough to make her forget about Riven, but a part of her didn't want to. She liked the feeling she got when he was around, not to mention she wouldn't mind the company, having friends was nice but having a boyfriend around close by would have been even nicer. _I just miss him, that's all_ She said to herself. It had been a few days since she saw Riven last but she can still remember the amazing feeling she got when she put her arms around his muscular body. Then there was Daniel who was a lot more then a rush of lustful feelings, he was so much more and there was so much history between them. She had two options, either take a break from Daniel and risk losing him to see where her feelings for Riven go or stay with Daniel, a guy she knew she could trust and she loved being with, and just try to get over whatever it was keeping her attached to Riven. She knew what she was going to do, but she still couldn't decide if that was what she really wanted.

"What happened in here!" Techna exclaimed pulling Musa from her thoughts.

"Are you guys okay?" Flora asked surveying the damage and wondering what happened in there. Stella and Bloom sat up, still pretty wet and giggled.

"Bloom showed us a great earth sport, a water fight, and I won!" Stella said proudly before Musa jumped in and corrected her.

"Please you did not win," Musa said as she sat up on the table and looked at the hose she brought into the room. "I did,"

"It's not funny," Flora scolded.

"What if Griselda sees this!" Techna asked and immediately turned around when she heard Griselda's voice behind here.

"Indeed what if," Griselda said standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, obviously unhappy with what she saw. "I came to let you know that Charmed Life will be playing at Magix Stadium tomorrow night and all of Alfea will be there. Do you know this group?"

"I have all their CD's," Stella said excitedly thinking that they were all invited to go to the concert.

"Good thing, because since you have so much cleaning left, you will not be attending the show. Perhaps one of your classmates can bring you back a T-shirt," Griselda said with a smile, it was obvious that she was kind of happy to see the girls finally taking the punishment seriously.

Musa had met the guys of Charmed Life, since she was the princess of the Harmonic Nebula many artists tried to get invited to the palace to meet with her family since it was considered an honor and those who didn't get an invitation, would usually get booked as the entertainment for one of their parties. Charmed Life consisted of what was probably some of the most annoying people she had ever met. Brad, the lead singer was a total ass. He was practically in love with himself and yet he hit on everyone. Charmed Life was one of the biggest boy bands in the Magical Dimension and they performed at the twins' birthday the year before. Musa, who was never a fan of boy bands, was actually looking forward to the band, but they were pretty bad. They lip synced and all of them looked overly tan with the IQ of pencil.

And yet she would rather go to their concert instead of cleaning the school.

The rest of the day dragged on as the girls actually began cleaning the school. It was a pretty boring task and tiring more than anything. Suddenly Musa had a lot more respect for all the maids that scurried around her castle everyday cleaning and making sure that the everything in the castle ran smoothly.

"It's just us," Bloom said sadly the next day as the girls watched the rest of the girls leave the Alfea campus.

"That group is totally bunk but anything beats cleaning duty," Musa pointed out.

"Hey I love that group!" Stella said defensively defending the boy band.

"That are total asses," Musa pointed out. "The only relatively nice one was Justin,"

"Justin is so hot!" Stella exclaimed thinking about the blond boy bander.

"He is," Musa said in agreement, but her image of him was severely blemished when she saw him and Penelope Yuki making out in the coat room of the twins' party. Penelope was a nice girl, but she was loose, to say put it lightly. "But they are not as cool in person as you would think, all the magazines make them look nice and sweet, but they are conceited and annoying beyond belief, but their music isn't all bad,"

"You've met them," Flora questioned.

"Yeah, they were the entertainment for my friend's party," Musa stated. "Honestly, I liked them a little till that point, so maybe we're not missing too much." Musa said trying to change her attitude about this whole thing. If they were going to be stuck her, complaining probably wouldn't help and she could just look on the bright side.

"Those guys do seem rather fake," Techna said looking over the CD cover Stella insisted on showing the girls that she had signed by the group. Unfortunately, her memorabilia was upstaged by Musa's story since she had actually met them and partied with them.

"Speaking of guys," Stella said with a smile forming. "Let's call the boys,"

"Right, I'm sure they'd just flip at the prospect of helping us clean the entire school," Flora said with sarcasm as she mopped the floor aimlessly.

"Well we'll just say we need some heroics and bravery," Bloom suggested. It was so obvious why Stella and Bloom wanted the guys over, but Musa didn't mind the prospect of seeing Riven again either. If she was going to ride out this crush, then why not see him and she figured the more she saw him, the more she would see him as a friend rather than anything else. In any case, Musa wanted to see Riven just as bad as her friends wanted to see Brandon and Sky.

"Yes, and we know they can't resist a call from damsels in distress," Stella said dramatically.

"Quick, cell them before they leave for the show," Musa said excitedly not realizing how excited she sounded. She still needed to keep up a façade until this whole Riven thing blew over. "This school is going to take forever to clean and we need all the help we can get," she reasoned but by the looks on everyone's face, they weren't buying it.

* * *

After Stella called, Musa was in the auditorium picking up some stuff she left when she saw she was getting a call from her boyfriend. She picked up with a lot less fear this time, she was actually a lot more calm about the situation. Musa had reasoned with herself that she was not going to let a crush ruin what she had at home and if she just waited out her feelings for Riven, eventually she could go back to the way things were with Daniel. "Hello,"

"How's punishment," Daniel joked. Musa had called him the morning before and explained what happened with Griselda and Faragonda after the whole incident with the witches. Daniel was pretty upset with Musa that she had agreed to go to Cloud Tower, but Musa knew it was only because he was worried about her.

"We're stuck at school alone," Musa said trying not to sound happy since she knew that Riven was coming.

"If I remember correctly, we had a lot of fun sneaking into Devon after hours," Daniel said recalling the time when there was a party at the Devon Prep pool after-hours. It was he and Nate that started the party, but Musa and everyone else in their crowd were there in a matter of minutes.

"This is a little different," Musa said also recalling the night and blushing. It was good night. "We're in school and we get to clean,"

"I thought you guys were going to that concert tonight," Daniel said swearing he heard Musa talking about how excited she was a bout a concert that they were all going to.

"Yeah, but we're on punishment and that means no concert," Musa explained. "And we have to clean,"

"They're making you clean," Daniel asked with a disgusted tone. His girlfriend was way to good to be cleaning. The whole idea of her having to do such remedial work was unsettling to him. "Are they even allowed to do that?"

"Aww it's okay baby, I don't really mind,"

"So what do you have to clean?"

"The entire school,"

"What!" Daniel said in surprise. He had been to Alfea a couple time and even though it wasn't the biggest school in the world it was still a lot to clean. "It's just the five of you cleaning?"

"Pretty much, don't worry about it. I'm sure a little cleaning won't kill me," Musa assured. "We can all take a wing and someone can take the main entrance,"

"That sucks," Daniel said still upset that Musa had to clean. When Musa thought about it, his attitude towards being royal was very similar to Stella's, although Daniel never threw fits and temper tantrums when he didn't get his way.

"It does but I guess I can – ," Musa began but was cut off by an excited Stella running into the room.

"THE BOYS ARE HERE!" Stella squealed in a sing song tone and then walked outside to greet the guys and especially Prince Sky.

"Wow this is sounding a lot like the time we had a party in Devon after hours," Daniel pointed out calmly. "I thought it was only you five,"

"It was," Musa explained trying to keep the guilt out of her voice. "Umm, I guess Stella invited some of our friends from Red Fountain," Musa said only giving Daniel half the truth and not telling him about how excited she was about seeing Riven.

"Oh,"

"Look Stella and Bloom have huge crushes on these two guys and so Stella invited them over with some of their friends," Musa explained and realized that she was not only keeping some of the truth from him, but making it sound worse. "We're all friends now, they're cool, I mean you'd like them,"

"Cool, have fun," Daniel said trying to cover anxiety he had about this. "You'll have some help cleaning,"

"Yeah," Musa said not really sure what to say. She had told him a million times that nothing was going on, but for some reason she felt like she needed to explain herself. Daniel had a way of making her feel guilty, probably because she could sense the suspicion in his voice and he could probably sense the nervous tone in hers. "They're just friends, like me hanging out with Nate and Brian,"

"Yeah, have fun and don't work too hard," Daniel insisted. "I'll talk to you later baby,"

"Okay, bye," Musa said and hung up the phone knowing that things were going to be weird between her and Daniel again. But for now, she was more concerned about seeing the guys, more importantly, Riven.

* * *

Musa walked outside as the guys pulled up. "You guys didn't waste anytime now did you," Stella said as they all stopped.

"So what kind of heroics and bravery do you girls need," Sky asked coolly when he took off his helmet and looked straight at Stella.

"Follow us," Bloom said with a sly look on her face that was meant for Brandon. The guys did as they were told and followed the girls into the main entrance of Alfea. Musa, who was walking at the head of the pack, glanced back and noticed Riven was staring at her. Feeling her face heat up as she blushed, Musa turned back around and tried to gain some composure as she walked toward the cleaning supplies.

"Here are the steps," Musa said as she picked up a mop gracefully throwing a sly and sexy smile to Riven oh so subtly. "Soap up, scrub and rinse," Musa said as she wiped the floor with the mop and did a few flirty twirls as well, then looking over to the boys in the entrance of the room. "See it's not too hard,"

"We skipped a concert for this?" Riven said with his arms crossed. Musa looked up and saw him with that same scowl on his face and wondered why it was so hard for him to lighten up, she continued to clean, but managed to lock eyes with him and it seemed like she wasn't the only one that liked it.

"Oh come on. It'll be a blast." Bloom insisted as she picked up some brooms and threw them over to the guys. "Now take your weapons boys,"

Even though none of the guys seemed to happy with their task, they all cooperated and began cleaning. Expect of coarse Riven who simply stood against the wall with his arms folded. Everyone

"Hip mop," Musa said to Techna as she twirled around a mop over her head.

"Lame," Riven said quietly and luckily nobody hear him because a comment like that would surely earn him a pale of water in his face.

Cleaning was a lot quicker with 8 people helping, since Riven didn't lift a finger the entire time and in no time the cleaning was done. "So boys since you were so helpful," Stella began sweetly. "You guys have the option of going back to the concert or you guys can stay here and have some fun with us,"

It was obvious that the guys wanted to stay, but of coarse they all tried to play it cool so Sky gave a smile and followed Stella back to their common room. "The cleaning is finito," Musa said as she walked over to her stack of CD's that were in the common room and looked at them. When she decided on what to play, she did the 'bend and snap' (**1**) that Leslie showed her when she picked up the CD's she wanted knowing that Riven was behind her and she was wearing a skirt so she knew he probably looked. "It's time to get the party started and DJ Musa's at the tables. Let's see,"

Musa had changed into different clothes after cleaning since she was pretty wet after all the mopping. She was just going to wear another pair of jeans and some random top, but then she saw a skirt in her closet and remembered it was quite the head turner when she was out with Daniel one night. She didn't like playing mind games with guys, but there was something about the initial flirting that she just loved and with Riven the little cat and mouse game was cute, besides, it wans't going anywhere so what was wrong with some harmless fun? "Tunes for the east wing, west wing, north wing and south wing!" Musa said as she walked behind some turn tables and skillfully flicked some CD's into different players that would be playing the music throughout the school.

Everyone started dancing and at first looked like a dance when kids were in 6th grade when all the guys were on one side of the room while the boys on the other. Finally, Sky began dancing with Stella while Brandon worked up the nerve to talk to Bloom. Luckily for Musa, she didn't have to worry about that stuff since she was busy behind the turn tables mixing the music, and she did seem to have a talent for it.

"Musa come on and dance!" Stella said to Musa who looked up from her CD's to see Stella dancing with Sky. "If anyone should be dancing it's you," Stella said, Musa did want to dance, she loved to do it. But, she was safe behind the turn tables, she wanted to dance with Riven, but she knew that wouldn't exactly fly with Daniel.

But then again there was no denying that she wanted to catch Riven's attention. Musa nodded and did a quick little spin and a couple more cute moves that required her to move her hips in front of Riven and from the quick glance she took from after she finished and walked back to her place at the turn tables, it looked like he was intrigued.

* * *

Musa then looked around the room to see that Flora was alone as well so she called her over and the two worked the turn tables together until Musa decided to take a break. Even though she knew she couldn't really let her feelings for Riven go anywhere, she was kinda upset that he hadn't asked her to dance. And then of coarse she still felt the guilt for liking someone else, why couldn't she just get over Riven already! Musa walked away from the turn tables and sat out on the ledge of the balcony.

Musa sat on the balcony and looked down knowing full well that she could fall from the balcony, not that she was going to, she had impeccable balance. She could have called Daniel since her mind went to him when they talked, the only time she felt something for Riven was when he was around or when she thought about him…which was happening even more often, but still maybe talking to Daniel more would help her.

Musa got lost in her thoughts about Riven and Daniel, another thing that was becoming more and more prevalent. When she heard the door to the balcony door open and she got startled. Musa felt herself fall forward, although her body was still on the railing she was ready to fall off and she held tighter onto the rails until she couldn't anymore and just before she let go she felt someone grab her before she could fall.

Riven had come out on the balcony to get some air, but he came across Musa sitting on her own and of coarse the second he got out there she was ready to fall off the railing. Luckily he had lightning fast reflexes and he managed to both of his hands on her hips and pull her back.

Musa fell back and felt Riven pull her back onto the balcony. He had such strong arms, Musa thought when she realized what was happening. "Thanks," Musa said nervously when she was safety back on the balcony she looked up at him and noticed he had yet to get his hands off her hips, not that she was complaining.

"Yeah," Riven said unable to really say anything else when he was looking into those beautiful azure eyes.

The two stood looking at each other for a second before Musa snapped out of the trance. "Um, I should go back in, thanks again," Musa said and quickly walked into the room, leaving Riven alone on the balcony in a state of awe. She knew that she was getting way to close to Riven, even though nothing really happened between them, Musa's attraction was beginning to feel like more and she was not about to do anything to hurt Daniel.

Musa passed time at the party hanging out with everyone and getting to know the other guys. They actually had some really interesting stories to tell about past missions they were on. The group was listening to Brandon and Timmy tell them about a mission they went on last year when the guys accidentally wondered into a pack of frost giants and accidentally angered the leader of the pack and then got attacked.

Half way through the story, however, they all heard rumbling and felt it too.

"What's that?" Bloom asked as everyone tumbled a bit from the shock that rolled the floor. And caused Stella to drop her drink all over Prince Sky.

"Maybe a dragon got lose?" Flora trying to offer some constructive help, but the only dragons in the area were in the animal preserve or under tight lock and key over at Red Fountain so it would be highly unlikely for them to get loose.

"Let's check outside," Stella said as she walked over to the balcony followed by the others. They all moved to the balcony and Musa observed the scene. The entire campus seemed as quiet as Ms. Faragonda left it when they went to the concert. "It must have been some kind of mini quake. Oh well, no biggy."

Stella's hypothesis was proven incorrect when they witnesses a desk flying through a history classroom window from the west wing of the school. And judging from the distance it got, it was thrown with incredible force.

"Over there! Let's go!" Sky commanded to his friends and they all suddenly became ready for action. Riven then whistled loudly and summoned their bikes, that were activated by the shrill sound. Then, as if they did this all the time, the boys jumped from the balcony and onto the bike and rode over to the other end of the school. When Musa saw the stunt, she was more confused by the action then impressed. Why jump on your bike to get across the quad? If anything they were putting their bikes in danger of getting hit from whatever was throwing the desk.

"Come on!" Bloom yelled to the girls as they ran down from their rooms and met the guys who were standing in front of the mess, proving to Musa that the guys could have just as easily walked down instead of riding there on their bikes.

"Half the wall is gone," Brandon said as he surveyed the extensive damage.

"See anything?" Musa asked as she looked at the damage. It was obvious that a very big something or someone cause this and she wasn't too sure if she wanted to see who it was. Not to mention that they had spent so much time cleaning that particular part of the school, she was not about to go on a hunt for whatever did this and then clean up after it.

"This damage was caused by some kind of creature." Timmy said observing the damaged and seeing fur, besides it was not like a single person could cause this.

"Hmm… a very big creature." Techna pointed out, even though it was pretty clear that the creature wasn't small.

"Really? Tell us something we don't know." Riven spat out sarcastically not realizing that Musa was using every snide comment against him to hopefully get over him, even though that plan had been horribly ineffective so far.

Techna turned and looked at him with a challenging look in her eye. "It's three meters tall and weighs close to a ton. Its fur is bristly, not soft. It walks upright, has honed in addition to multiple clawed limbs and it give off a foul musky odor."

Musa and Stella could not help but laugh a little by this, Musa did like this guy, but it was funny to see him being put in his place. Musa, however, was a lot more discrete with her appraisal of the situation while Stella was a lot more vocal about it when she burst out laughing at Riven. "She told you!"

Just as Riven was about to tear her a new one, he was stopped by another rumble that came from deeper in the school.

"It's that way!" Brandon said when they heard the noise.

"Come on guys. Phantoblades out," Sky commanded once again.

"Wait, we're coming too," Bloom insisted.

"Okay," Brandon agreed, but was swiftly cut off by Riven.

"No way. You girls just go find some place to hide, you'll probably get in the way," Riven ordered looking at the girls and stopping when he looked at Musa. She had an obvious look of offence in her eyes, but at the same time she looked interested like there was something about him that made Musa overlook the constant snipes. Finally, Musa looked away and immediately Riven turned to the rest of the guys and followed them as they walked though the rubble and into the dark school.

"Whatever," Musa said with attitude she could kind of tell that his constant snipes at her were some way of flirting, but why couldn't he be like a normal guy and flirt normally? This whole bad boy thing was getting old, fast. "Come on let's go,"

The girls had decided to follow Musa since she had the best directional sense since they could depend on her hearing. For a while there was a bit of rumbling and then the school fell quiet. Even Musa was having trouble picking up some sound waves from the area, but she didn't let up.

"It sure did get quiet all of a sudden," Flora commented in the same scared tone she used when they were in that old house outside of Magix looking for Stella.

"Maybe it went away," Bloom answered optimistically.

"I don't think so, I can still feel something unsettling,"

"It could be all the sandwiches you scarfed down," Stella said attempting to lighten the mood.

"Shh," Musa said as her eyes narrowed and she focused more intently. "Do you hear that?" Musa asked ash she put her hand to her ear attempting to amplify the sound waves coming to her ears. (**2**)

"I don't hear a thing," Stella whispered to Techna

"If you had sonar ears like Musa does, you would," Techna stated in a hushed tone.

Just then Musa, who was looking slightly toward the side to accommodate her hand on her ear, hit something in front of her and when she looked up and realized what she hit, she kinda wished she was paying more attention to her surroundings visually. "Uhhh guys," Musa said nervously looking at the monster in all it's hugeness (**3**) and so fierce looking that she stood frozen. "I think I just bumped the butt of out party crasher,"

The rest of the girls looked up and had the same expression on their faces that were very similar to the face that Musa had. The minotaur, as Techna identified it was huge and it was covered in blue fur and exactly how Techna predicted earlier. The beast let out a loud roar and after Stella challenged it, forgetting she didn't have her powers, the girls made a run for it.

No matter how fast the girls were the minotaur seemed to be catching up to them quickly, but they didn't stop running since it was run or get trampled. As if running that fast wasn't hard, but with every step the beast took, the entire room began to shake vigorously, making it even harder for the girls to keep their balance and with one misstep, Musa fell to the ground. Luckily, the minotaur wasn't looking at Musa, but he was particularly anger at the digital fair for some reason and began to get ready to charge.

"Incoming!" Musa yelled as some of the dust cleared and she saw the minotaur get ready to charge.

The beast, that had honed in on Techna, charged at her with his horns and all the girls could do was watch in horror. Luckily, Techna did a quick jump and dodged the attack and the minotaur managed to run right into the wall and get it's horns stuck in the wall.

Stella, being so blithely oblivious to the dangers in the room, walked up to the beast and cringed when she smelled the horrible odor it was giving off. Stella then took out some perfume and sprayed it. "Here you go," She said looking as if she believed that this would calm the savage beast.

"Yeah Stella, make him angry!" Musa yelled when she noticed how unhappy the minotaur looked as she prepared to run again.

"Time to run again," Bloom said as she began to run and all the other girls followed suit. Unfortunately, Musa began to lag behind and she looked back to see that the minotaur was gaining on her.

"Musa jump!" Flora advised urgently. Musa nodded and quickly did a double jump up a wall and looked almost spider like in her fluid movements. That type of quick movement took some skill and a lot of strength in the legs. Finally, Musa had managed to keep herself pinned up against the ceiling. "You're going down," Musa said as she dropped from the ceiling head first with her hand together in front of her. She powerfully rammed into it's head and sent it falling forward while she did a graceful flip and landed perfectly on her feet. When she looked back at the height she dropped from and what she had just, she was pretty proud of herself.

"Now this is my kind of party. Looks like we got here just in time," Riven said with a smirk that made Musa melt. He continued his stride toward the monster, but as he passed Musa, she couldn't stop herself from looking at the guy who seemed to be plaguing her dreams, and as he went past his eyes met hers, for probably the millionth time that night, but she couldn't help it and from what she could tell, he couldn't either.

"Good job Musa," Brandon congratulated as he walked by making Musa feel even more proud of her accomplishment.

"Hey! You with the pony tail!" Riven shouted causing Musa to start looking back at him, not that she minded, it was fun to look at that amazingly toned body. "If you want a real challenge, come over here."

The minotaur, now surrounded and obviously agitated began to charge at Riven and for a couple seconds he managed to dodge the monster swiftly, but it was becoming more than he could handle.

"Need a hand there, bro?" Brandon said as he ran into aid his friends. Musa and the rest of the girls wanted to help, but they couldn't really do much since their powers were gone and the last thing they wanted was to be an additional burden on the guys.

"Don't think you're getting all the fun Riven," Sky said jumping into the fight. From where Musa was standing, it looked more like they were trying to impress their respective crush.

"Yeah! Save some for us!" Brandon added.

"I can handle the – huh?" Riven said before stopping.

Riven ran straight into a fist and fell straight back and out the window, breaking thought the glass, and into another room. Musa's heart fell straight into her stomach and she suddenly got into a panic. Musa ran to the broken window and saw that Riven was unconscious. She would have gone to him, but she heard more clamor inside and decided to tend to Riven a bit later, fighting ever urge she had to go to him.

Musa looked back a second later to see all the guys lying on the floor defeated and the girls, who were without their powers were left to fend for themselves. When all seemed lost, Stella walked over to the group and in a cheerful manner carrying brooms and pales. "Yoohoo! Did anyone call for housekeeping, look at what I've got,"

"Excellent idea Stella!" Bloom said excitedly as she walked over to the pales and the rest of the girls followed. At first, Musa was not quite sure where they were going with this, but then after Bloom started banging on a pale, she got it.

They were going to make noise to distract the minotaur and then cleverly make it slip on the soap hat Stella was carrying in her other hand. "Hey bull snot!" Bloom called out.

"Wanna dance?" Stella mocked.

The minotaur began to follow them as they ran down the hallway and just as they had expected, they made him slip on the soap and it was enough to knock him out. "Nice job," Musa congratulated her friends as the looked at the defeated beast that had been destroying their school.

"Let's go see if the guys are okay," Stella said walking back down the hall when she was sure that the minotaur was knocked out.

"Hey Musa, why don't you check on Riven?" Flora said with a coy smile as they walked back down the hall. Instead of trying to make it seem like she didn't care about him, Musa figured she would let Flora have this one since the only thing on her mind was if he was okay.

Musa walked to Riven and checked first to see if there was any evident bleeding, there wasn't. She then checked to see if he was breathing and thankfully he was as well. "Riven," Musa asked tapping him gently to see if he would come to.

Riven opened his eyes to see Musa's worried face looking at him. When Musa saw Riven's eyes open she let out a sigh of relief and looked to see if his pupils were the same size. She had figured out after a party that went out of control that to check if someone has dilated pupils that were not uniform in size, that was a sign of having a concussion. (**4**) "Hey do you feel dizzy," Musa asked as Riven sat up.

"No, I'm fine," Riven answered in an attached tone, but nearly fell back. The fall he had taken was big; she didn't expect him to walk away from it without a scratch. Noticing the look of worry on her face, Riven couldn't help but put down his bravado and thank Musa. "Thanks,"

"I guess we can call it even," Musa said as she offered her hand and helped him up and they walked back to join the rest of the group.

"Where'd this thing come from?" Flora asked as she and the rest of the group surrounded the fallen beast.

"The creature preserve?" Riven asked figuring it was the only place that a minotaur would be, its not like they were common in this area.

"Except that the creature persevere doesn't have any minotaurs," Bloom said leading them back to square one.

"Look!" Stella pointed.

"A duck," Musa said as if she had just solved the entire mystery while she watched the small purple duck crawl out from under the minotaur and cry 'mommy'.

"We all know who's being stalked by a duck; Icy," Bloom deduced.

"That must mean the senior witches are here," Techna pointed out.

"Yeah, they must be trying to get the Ring of Solaria again, but I know just the way to trap them," Bloom said knowing that they were going to eventually come back for revenge.

Bloom led them all to Faragonda's office and began to explain her reasoning. "When they can't find the ring, they're bound to go to Faragonda's office to use the All Seeing Crystal Ball of Alfea."

"If they haven't already," Flora added ominously.

"Doesn't look like they have," Brandon said as they entered the head mistress's office. It was neat and clean, but you could expect nothing less from Ms. Faragonda. They all seriously doubted that the witches would have snuck around the room and searched carefully keeping everything in it's correct place.

"They will, and when they do we'll ambush them." Bloom said determined to take these witches down.

"I think they're coming now," Riven warned and they all became very alert.

"Oh, I don't know," the Flora said nervously.

"It'll be fine," Musa assured Flora, even though she wasn't so sure herself.

"Everyone hide!" Bloom whispered urgently.

"That means the Dragon Fire is in this room, but I don't see a thing. Guess we'll just have to trash the place and do a thorough search cause I'm not – " Icy began but was then cut off.

"You're not trashing anything!" Bloom ordered jumping up to face the witches. "Hit the lights Riven!"

"You are so surrounded," Stella bragged with a smug look.

"What are you doing here?" Icy asked taken aback by the sudden ambush.

"No, what are you doing here?" Bloom questioned.

"What are all of you doing here?" Asked a new, yet very familiar voice and from the midst of the chaos, Ms. Faragonda stepped into the center of the room and gave all the girls a hard look. _Oh crap_ Musa thought as she looked around the room and tried to see the perspective Faragonda had and walking in on 4 heroes, 5 fairies and three witches in an office ready to duke it out was not too easy to explain. "Don't bother hiding Bloom. I see everything."

"I wasn't hiding," Bloom lied nervously as she got back on the floor after attempting to jump behind Faragonda's desk. "I was looking for something."

"Yes well, I'm waiting," Ms. Faragonda said firmly then used her powers to stop the witches, who were going to walk out of the office disobediently, in their tracks. "You three will get to leave as soon as we straighten this whole mess out,"

"Okay well we were cleaning and we were _so_ tired," Stella said getting ready to confess, but then Musa, who predicted she would, decided to help cover for them.

"Yeah, so we took a break and went upstairs," Musa began. "But we heard something down here and when we cam back down we saw the minotaur,"

"Exactly and then we called the boys so they could help us," Flora added.

"Since we didn't have our powers," Stella emphasized finally.

"Yeah and after we dealt with the minotaur, we saw the witches going to your office so we headed them off and well you know what happened since then," Musa finished, pretty proud of both herself and her friends at being able to twist the situation a bit so that they didn't get into trouble, if anything they should have gotten rewarded.

"Is that so?" Ms. Faragonda asked to the group, everyone nodded in agreement, except for the witches who simply rolled their eyes and cursed the situation under their breath. "Alright then, girls please escort the boys out and I will deal with our other guests.

* * *

Just as Musa predicted, the next day they had gotten their powers back and all was good with the world. Of course there was the argument with Karen that hadn't blown over yet and the feelings that didn't seem to want to go away. But Musa took it as a challenge, how hard could it be to get over some guy that wasn't all that nice to you in the first place?

Without giving it another thought, Musa pulled out her phone and gave her boyfriend a call.

* * *

_1. Courtesy of Elle Woods from Legally Blonde_

_2. Sounds waves get amplified when traveling through enclosed spaces _

_3. Realized how dirty that sounded when I read it over, but decided to keep it anyway. If you don't get it, you have a cleaner mind than I do. _

_4. Very true, when a person has a concussion, there pupils tend to be different sizes because the pupillary dilator muscles are not getting proper signals from the brain. _

_So next is the day of the rose. An episode where Musa is off on her own so I can basically let my imagination run wild – fun fun!_

_xoxo  
__princessm_

* * *


	8. The Day of the Rose

_So as you know, the day of the rose is when Riven made the ol' switcheroo to the dark side with Darcy. But, Musa couldn't have known that till after the fact so we get to see just what she did that day. _

_Btw- I am a huge Musa/Riven fan so this was sort of hard to me to write, you'll see why. But just keep in mind, things have to get bad before they can get good. ;)_

_Enjoy!_

* * *

**The Day of the Rose**

Musa sat up in bed after yet another dream about Riven, this time the setting was the little secluded party that they had a few days ago. She sighed as she swung her feet out of bed and looked over to her calendar.

Musa had all but forgotten that today was 'the day of the rose' and even though most people in Magix were pretty excited about going home and spending time with their families, Musa just wished she could sleep through the day. He father was away, which was hardly something new, and most of her friends would be going home as well so she figured she could spend the day lounging around Alfea. She walked over to her dresser and looked at the picture of her mother and smiled. She had so much she wished she could share with her mom and even though it had been years since she had passed away, the pain in her heart was still pretty strong on this particular day.

"Hey, Musa I was wond – ," Stella began cheerfully from Musa's doorway but faltered when she saw the look on Musa's face. "Hey are you okay?"

"Yeah," Musa said forcing a look of happiness onto her face even though she felt pretty lousy. "I'm fine, aren't you going home?"

"Nope, I was actually gonna ask you the same question,"

"Oh, nah I think I'm gonna stay here for the day, too,"

"Awesome we can hang out!" Stella said regaining her cheerful disposition and walking out of Musa's doorway back to her room to get ready for whatever she was planning on doing.

"Okay," Musa said doubting that Stella heard. She went back to looking at her mother's picture for a second and then hopped in the shower. Musa was planning to spend the day alone, maybe talk to her mom's picture and explain what's going on with her, but she didn't want Stella to be alone all day. Musa could tell under the sunny attitude she had, there was something troubling her.

After a quick shower, Musa put on her normal clothes and walked out to the common room where Techna and Flora were explaining 'the day of the rose' to Bloom. "Perfect! You can keep us company," Stella said as Musa stepped out of her doorway. It looked like Bloom wasn't going to be going home either.

After Flora and Techna left, the remaining three decided to go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat. The entire school was empty, including the teachers. Musa looked around and saw that they were the only ones in the school and felt kind of awkward there. During the day of the rose back home, most kids stayed on campus, it wasn't that big of a holiday and celebrating it wasn't a priority in any way.

They all sat down at an empty and sipped some tea that the mystro was nice enough to make before he left as well. "I hate when the school is empty, I don't know why, but it's just so depressing," Stella said after a few minutes of silence.

"Later!" Said a new voice. The girls turned around to see Professor Wizgiz ready to leave

for the holiday as well.

"Professor Wizgiz!" Bloom said cheerfully.

"Leaving?" Stella asked

"Of coarse," He said as he turned the pen in his pocket into a rose, then he began to skip merrily across the room towards the exit, explaining as he went. "Going to see dear mama, gonna transform into a bazelisc and give her a scare,"

"Funny guy," Musa said drolly.

"So why are you sticking around Bloom?" Stella asked, she and Musa didn't know since they were both in Musa's room talking when Bloom explained what was going on with Techna and Flora.

"I didn't have a choice, really," Bloom began. "I just found out about this holiday, I couldn't read the magi-cal, I guess I'm still a little behind, anyway, why didn't you two go home?"

"I've never told anyone this," Stella began a little nervously and Musa awaited her answer. She knew there was something bothering Stella and it looked like now she would find out what. "But, all is not well with the royal family, my mom and dad are getting a divorce. So now there are two palaces, but now things are getting really complicated, but these things happen right?"

Musa could tell that Stella was trying to play it off as if there was nothing wrong, but she could tell that this was really getting to Stella. She knew this because she did it a lot too when people asked about her mom. "And what's your story Musa?" Stella asked sounding as if nothing had happened that could bother her.

"Well, I told you guys that I lost my mom when I was a kid, so today's always been a little bittersweet," She began sadly really not wanting to relive the pain she was holding inside hoping she wouldn't start crying. "And my dad is at some important thing, so he's MIA, "

"Musa, I'm so sorry," Stella said

"It's okay, really," Musa assured them. "It been a long time since she passed and I miss her, but I got on with my life," Stella then gave Musa a hug and Bloom took the musical princesses hand as a sign of support and they all began to tear up.

"Well we've got a little family right here," Bloom said optimistically. "And I say we have a good time today,"

"Yeah! The suns are shining, there is a festival in the city, shopping and concerts!" Stella said happily getting up and prancing around the empty cafeteria.

"Is that your cell?" Musa asked picking up on the faint sound of her ringtone.

"It's a text message from Prince Sky," Stella began eagerly as she read the rest of the message. "He and some of the other boys will be at the festival today, wait that's not all, guess what? They're inviting us to the dance tonight!"

"Shall we?" Bloom asked expecting a 'yes' from Musa.

"I think I'm just gonna hang back," Musa said feeling a little depressed again. "But have fun,"

Bloom and Stella left a about an hour later, since Stella needed to go through the steps of finding the one outfit that would make Sky fall head over heals in love with her. After she managed to nail down an outfit, the two were off very excitedly.

Musa then walked around the empty school and finally went up to the tower at Alfea and looked out over the edge.

"I remember when you used to tell me about this place mom, you said it was your favorite spot in Alfea," Musa said as she stood up on the highest tower of Alfea, looking out over the campus and further on, she could even manage to make out the massive crowds in Magix for the festival. "Here you go," Musa said placing a small ornament on the ledge of the towers. She then used a bit of Magix to reveal a magi- photo of her mom.

Musa remembered when she was young that her mom would talk all about how excited she was to see Musa go to Alfea. That was the main reason she had come her and now she was here and she loved the school. "So let me tell you what's going on, classes are good and I'm acing potions, and I met this cool guy, his name's Riven and he's a total blazer (**1)**. He's a little ruff around the edges, but I think that's his way of flirting, you know." Musa said remembering that she did in fact have a boyfriend and shouldn't be so infatuated with some guy.

"But, I do really like Daniel and I love him, but not in that way, or I don't think I do," Musa said as she leaned back against the pillar. "I dunno, mom. Sometimes I feel like Daniel and I are so planned and perfect, I mean everyone wants us to be together I feels so organized, like it's what I'm supposed to do. But then again, why wouldn't I want to be with him? I mean he's sweet and he really cares for me, but I can't stop feeling this way,"

"Anyway, I'm gonna spend the whole day with you," Musa began before her phone went off, she wasn't going to pick up but she saw it was Daniel calling and she figured she would pick up and tlak to him since this day wasn't easy on either of them. "Sorry mom, I'll talk to you later," Musa said closing the picture.

* * *

"Okay, I guess. You know. " Musa said answering honestly knowing that Daniel knew exactly how she felt on the day of the rose. "It's kind of weird, the whole school is empty,"

"Yeah," Daniel agreed before lightening the mood with something that might make Musa smile. "You in the mood for a little game?" Daniel said in a playful tone.

"Uhh, what?" Musa asked confused. She was actually pretty happy to hear from Daniel since she was all alone all day.

"I have a gift waiting for you at Magix Airport, it's in the private landing hanger number 11," Daniel began. "I think you'll like it,"

_The airport? _Musa thought to herself wondering what Daniel could have possibly gotten her. "You did not get me a jet," Musa said seriously not being able to think of any other gift she would be picking up at the airport.

"No, not a jet," Daniel affirmed. "The gift is waiting at hanger 11 and the guards there are waiting for you so I suggest you get a move on. It's time sensitive material so hurry up,"

"Okay fine, but if I get there and see like 11 kilos of coc-,"

"Don't worry," Daniel said chuckling at what Musa thought she was going to pick up. Musa began walking down the steps of the bell towers and into the school, on her way to Magix. She figured whatever Daniel had sent would probably brighten her day anyway. "I promise you will like this and it is completely legal,"

"Okay I'm on my way right now," Musa said as she walked through Alfea and into the quad. She immediately stopped when she saw a limo waiting in front of the school. "Daniel did you send -,"

"Well I can't have you running around Magix all by yourself," Daniel explained knowing Musa had probably just seen the car he had sent to pick her up. "Besides you know you like the idea of arriving in style,"

"You're sweet,"

"And you are on a treasure hunt, call me when you get the surprise," Daniel said and then hung up. Musa smiled and sat in to the limo and thought about what her surprise might be. On the way to the airport, Musa opened the picture of her mom once again.

"Sorry mom, but Daniel has some urgent surprise he wants me to pick up," Musa said looking at the picture knowing she wasn't going to get a reaction out of her. "But maybe this will help me sort out all my feelings, but I'll talk to you later, promise,"

Magix Airport was pretty crowded that day, it made sense since everyone was going home. Musa looked out the window of the limo eagerly as they approached the destination. It was the landing sight for private jets, but when Musa looked around there wasn't one around. Whatever Daniel had gotten her was meant to be a surprise until the last second. Musa stood in front of a small building that was separate from the airport and according to the chauffeur; she was supposed to go in.

Musa was not too keen on walking into some dark place that she'd never been in before so she decided to call the guy responsible for the scavenger hunt she was on. "Hello?"

"Daniel what's going on, why can't I have my gift out on the landing area," Musa asked without any proper greeting. She was having fun with this, but she wanted to get to the surprise.

"Because I said so, go in the room," Daniel commanded.

"No,"

"Musa, please,"

"Why can't I just,"

"Baby," Daniel said in a begging tone.

"Fine, but this better be good," Musa said opening the door and seeing a pitch black room. "It's dark,"

"Light switch is on your right," Daniel said. Musa wondered for a second on how he knew that, but when the lights came on she knew. She stared with disbelief and surprise in her eyes at her boyfriend holding a bouquet of red roses in one hand and a cell phone. "The devilishly handsome guy holding the flowers and talking on his cell phone is your surprise,"

Musa said nothing, she closed her phone and shoved it in her pocket as she ran into Daniel's arms, crushing her flowers in the process. It had been a month since she had seem him last and Musa had almost forgotten how much she missed him. Musa pulled away to look at him and he was clearly as happy as she was. She put both hands on his face and pulled him into an excited kiss that made him drop the flowers and his phone and wrap his arms around her. "So how are you doing?" He asked when they finally parted.

"I'm okay," Musa answered. She loved that Daniel had come here knowing that she would love the company. Musa liked being alone today, but it was as if Daniel had known that she needed someone to lean on when she felt this bad, and it looked like he was always there when she needed him. "I'm so glad you're here,"

"What about you?" Musa asked as she lightly caressed his chest. Daniel's parents were both still alive, but they were hardly what you would call loving. Daniel's mother cared more about her appearance and society events to ever care for him so Daniel was raised by nannies since he was born. His mother would rather have a designer handbag on her arm than her own son. And Daniel's father, Alexander, was probably the coldest person Musa had ever met, and she only saw his soft side since Daniel's father seemed to love her like a daughter. King Alexander was horrible to Daniel, he was never a father to him. He only expected the best from his son and if Daniel didn't deliver perfection, his father was not very happy. Even though Daniel would never admit it, he always secretly wanted his parents' affection even though he played it off like he didn't care about what they thought of him. "You okay,"

"I am now," Daniel said and planted a soft kiss on Musa's head as they continued walking through the empty airport landing area until they got to the limo.

The two stepped into the limo and sat comfortably when Musa looked at Daniel and saw that he was taking the day pretty hard as well. "So why aren't you at home," Musa asked knowing that Daniel probably wanted to get it off his chest and move past the hurt he was probably feeling.

"Well, mom is off at some spa and I doubt she even knows that it's the day of the rose. And the idea of going back to the palace with just me and good old dad was hardly appetizing," Daniel explained keeping his voice void of hurt. "So why not visit someone I actually want to see, besides I hated the idea of you being alone here all day,"

"I missed you," Musa said giving Daniel a quick peck on the lips almost as if rewarding him for being so sweet. But, as she moved away Daniel took the opportunity to pull her close and kiss her back.

Finally, after parting from the moderately passionate kiss, Daniel looked the musical princess in the eye and smiled. He then took notice of the fact that Musa was still wearing the necklace he had given her before she left for Alfea. "I missed you too,"

Musa leaned her head onto Daniel's chest and felt so much comfort being wrapped in his arms. It was nice to be around someone so familiar, especially today. She wanted to be home, but her father was never really himself on this particular day and the rest of the castle was usually quiet. Musa remembered that Daniel and the rest of her group got together and hung out the entire day doing nothing but having fun, since most of them came from the same situation as Daniel did, except for Leslie whose parents really love her. But, they were always busy so Musa and her friends created their own little family since they were young. Being with Daniel today made her feel like she was back home with the people that she was so close to. "So what do you want to do today?" she asked not lifting her face from Daniel's embrace.

"There's a festival isn't there," Daniel said and Musa nodded forgetting that her friends were probably there as well. "We can go there if you're up for it, or we could walk around, go to lunch,"

"We'll do it all," Musa said excitedly sitting up and wiggling out of Daniel's arms. "I'll show you around, but Magix is a lot more fun when you walk around and stuff,"

"Sounds good to me," Daniel said and then told the driver to stop and the two got out of the car. "Alright, Musa lead the way,"

* * *

The two walked though the streets of Magix happily, occasionally walking into a few shops and getting things. Musa had forgotten that her friends might be walking around, and when she thought about it, maybe it was time to finally introduce them to Daniel. Musa was just enjoying the day, the same she did last year. It was a day that was usually bittersweet, but her fends always seemed to be able to pick up her mood and make her feel better. Suddenly, Musa felt Daniel pulling her into a restaurant. "Hungry?" she asked looking up into his emerald eyes.

"Yeah, plus a quiet place to talk," Daniel said pulling her closer and walking into the restaurant with her.

The two were seated and Musa looked to Daniel and felt an incredible stab of guilt. Here he was, this great sweet caring guy, coming all the way here for one day just to make her feel better. She hadn't thought of Riven all day, and Musa was hoping that meant that her crush was over because she couldn't keep hiding this from Daniel. "You okay?" Daniel asked when he noticed the look on Musa's face.

"Yeah, just thinking about what else we can do today," Musa lied and averting her gaze, knowing Daniel would be able to pick up on her lie if she didn't.

"Whatever is fine with me," Daniel said as he cut his food with all the correct utensils and the correct posture. It was clear that he had all of the rules he learned in etiquette class firmly embedded in his brain, Musa did as well but she had made it a point to unlearn them, just to piss off her aunt and other annoying family members. "As long as I'm with you,"

"Aww," Musa said as she caressed his hand from across the table. "I love having you around,"

"You're gonna love it more," Daniel said as he pulled out a large jewelry box. Musa looked at it with wide eyes and took it from him excitedly. "Don't worry, I'm not proposing," he mocked from the last time he gave her a gift.

Musa opened the box to see a simmering bracelet with diamonds and sapphires. "Oh Daniel," Musa said happily before leaning over the table and kissing him, the bracelet was beautiful and it matched the necklace he had given her. "I love it,"

_Riven would never say anything that sweet to you!_ Musa told herself and Riven definitely would never smile this much either. It was obvious that Daniel was the better choice and yet Musa had to make a conscious effort to push Riven out of her mind. But for the remainder of lunch, she managed to, they both carried on like nothing was different and it was nice. It was almost as if she had never met Riven.

Finally, when lunch finished the two were back off walking around Magix. They were deep in conversation when Musa heard a voice from behind. "Daniel Cunningham is that you!" said a very familiar voice.

Luckily or unfortunately, that voice belonged to Karen. She and Musa were still in a bit of a spat and she could use this opportunity to tell Daniel about her suspicions, but she wouldn't do that around Musa, would she? "Oh hey Karen," Daniel said with some enthusiasm.

"Hey I didn't know you were coming to Magix today!"

"Yeah it was a surprise for me," Musa said leaning her head on Daniel shoulder. She needed to prove to Karen once and for all the she was with Daniel and had no feelings for anyone else. "Isn't he the sweetest thing ever?" Musa said not realizing how much like Stella she had just sounded.

"Yeah, that's so sweet." Karen began. "You two are just the cutest thing ever,"

"So why aren't you back home?" Daniel asked not sure what was going on. Musa and Karen were normally really good friends and when he talked to her on the phone, she normally brought up Karen in one way or another. Something was up, but he let it go figuring it was some random girl thing he couldn't possibly understand.

"Ugh, home is overrated," Karen said. "I'd rather be here soaking up all the fun,"

"Sounds like a plan," Daniel stated and noted that Musa was looking a bit uncomfortable. "We're actually on our way to have some alone time, so we'll see you later,"

"Okay, bye guys," Karen said as she waved and turned in another direction to walk away. "You two behave,"

When she was a safe distance away Daniel turned to Musa with a questioning look. "We got in an argument about the most random stuff during dance, and I dunno things have been weird for awhile," Musa explained without having to be asked. She did note however that he didn't need much help to realize that she was uncomfortable, it was a plus on his side. Musa had been unconsciously weighing the 'goods' and 'bads' about Daniel all day and so far there the 'bad' list was pretty empty, while the 'bad' list for Riven was full to capacity.

"It'll blow over," Daniel assured as the two began to walk in an opposite direction from Karen. Musa and Daniel began to catch up on all of the happenings between their friends back home and Musa caught up Daniel on all the things going on in her life.

* * *

"Hey what's that," Daniel said stopping on the crowded side walk and turning his attention to what everyone else was looking at. He was looking at a bunch of guys lining up on leva bikes ready to race. "Looks like there is about to be a race,"

"Oh I guess you're right," Musa said as she turned around from the direction she was looking and looked to where Daniel was looking. Suddenly Musa felt uneasy, like her stomach was doing back flips and her lungs were taking turns tightening up. She saw Brandon, Sky and Riven sitting on their bikes casually.

"But I don't really want to stand in this huge crowd," Musa said fearing that her new friends from Red Fountain would see her and she would be put in the awkward position of introductions. Now, all the confidence she had about introducing Daniel to everyone dissolved and all she wanted to do was hide. For some reason she didn't want Riven to know that she was with someone else. Plus, she wanted all feelings for him gone before she introduced Daniel to her new friends.

"Oh there are some seats," Daniel said looking at a roped off area that was tented with a man standing in front only letting authorized people in. without waiting for Musa to respond, he took her hand and led her over to there, knowing full well that he had no affiliation with the people that got to sit in the tented area, but Daniel was not about to stand in the street when he could get a seat. He walked up to the guy and handed him what looked like a few hundred dollars and without a word he and Musa were seated with a perfect view of the race.

"Some things never change," Musa said playfully. She would have been perfectly fine watching the race if Riven wasn't competing in it, it seemed like whenever he was around Musa felt anxious and excited, normally that was a good thing, but when you had a really sweet boyfriend who trusted you, it wasn't.

"Hey, at least now you get to see the race," Daniel said taking a look at the racers and catching a hint of anxiety in her voice, although he couldn't figure out why it was there. "How about the making this interesting?"

Musa looked at him skeptically at him not sure if he was serious. When they used to make wagers, they never bet money because they all had plenty of it so it wasn't very fun. Instead, they used to make the loser do whatever the winner said, as long it was in the realm of possibility and morality…mostly. "What do you mean?"

"I say that… uhh that guy with the blue bike on the far left wins the race," Daniel said pointing to a kid with dark hair. Musa swore he went to Red Fountain, she had definitely seen him once before, she thought his name was Jared or something like that. "Who do you think is gonna win?"

"Come on Daniel," Musa said still focusing on Riven, half hoping he would look in her direction. "How are we supposed to know who is going to win?"

"Exactly, I could have just picked the worst rider out there," Musa gave him a hard look hoping he would get bored with the whole racing idea and suggest somewhere else to go. But, Daniel didn't let up. "Fine, I'll pick one for you."

"How is that fair?"

"Well you're not picking," Daniel said unable to keep a laugh from creeping through their cute little argument. "I say, that guy, 1st one from the right,"

Musa looked up and realized that Daniel had picked none other than Riven. (**2**) She stopped and looked at him for a second to take stock on the situation and from an outsider's point of view, she was screwed. "What?" Musa asked still thinking about how hot Riven looked on the bike. Then, Musa saw Bloom walk up to Riven's bike and he heart nearly stopped. _Crap! _Musa thought as she quickly turned her head and hoped that nobody saw her, she and Daniel had a perfect view of the race and that meant that everyone had a pretty good view of them.

"Fine you pick a guy," Daniel insisted casually as he put his arm around Musa. "But hurry up the race is starting soon,"

"No, he's umm no he's fine," Musa managed to get out of her mouth nervously. But, when she looked back up, she saw that Bloom and Stella were walking away from the side of the sidewalk. Taking a breathe, Musa sat as calmly as she could and tried enjoy herself in her boyfriend's embrace.

"Great," Daniel said happily as he focused on the race along with his girlfriend.

The race began and from the beginning Riven was in the lead. Musa couldn't help but smile to see him winning and she did show it. Every now and again she would cheer when Riven took the lead, unconsciously playing with her new bracelet on her hand. She was starting to have a great time again. "Glad to see you're warming up to the race," Daniel pointed out and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead.

Musa, who was still fixated on Riven, nodded and watched intently. She did however; make Daniel very aware that his racer was not doing so hot. "Looks like I'll be winning the bet," Musa said with a mischief in her eyes and looked back at the race to see something going on.

For a few seconds it looked like everything was fine and the next minute his bike was completely out of control. Musa began to panic as she saw Riven get thrown from the bike and hoped that Bloom, who was chasing after him for some reason, was able to get him before he hit the pavement.

"Oh!" Daniel said cringing at how Riven fell from the bike. "Ouch! But on the bright side I win!" he joked, but it looked like his girlfriend wasn't taking it so well.

"Daniel!" Musa scolded angrily. "He could be hurt!" She said as she leaned as far over the railing without falling over to see if Riven was okay. Just then she saw another rider go to him and attempt to help him. Musa felt a feeling of relief before she saw Darcy pull off the helmet, and her heart nearly stopped.

"See look," Daniel began putting his arm back around Musa. "That scary looking chick is helping him, nothing to worry about," Although he was acting calm, a few flags of suspicion had gone off in Daniel's head since they had sat down at the race. Musa looked a little too eager then she was looking at that one guy and he knew that Musa was a nice person, but she was getting a bit too worried. It made him think that there might be something else going on, but at the same time he felt like he was being paranoid and the last thing he wanted was to push Musa away with some accusations.

Musa would have stayed to see what was going on and to make sure that Riven was okay and that Darcy was taken care of, but Bloom flew over to them and began to yell at Darcy. Musa figured it was time to leave since she didn't want Bloom seeing them and plus, it looked like Bloom had it handled anyway so there was no need to stick around. "I guess," Musa said leaning back into Daniel's embrace. "But I guess you won," She said trying to perk up, still glancing back at the situation with Riven.

"Since I won," Daniel sad happily as the two walked in the opposite direction of the incident, but not before Musa look one last look back. "You have to do whatever I say,"

Pushing the worry she had for Riven back, Musa tried to get in the same mood she was in before. "As long as it's not too crazy," she warned.

"Oh come on," Daniel said with a smirk. "You know me, when have I ever done anything too extravagant," With that Daniel and Musa went back to walking around the streets of Magix as he contemplated what he wanted to do for the rest of the day.

* * *

"So I was thinking," Daniel spoke up after a few minutes of silence walking down the streets of Magix. "Instead of making you do something humiliating, I think you might like something else a little more,"

Musa didn't know what he meant by that, but he began leading her in the direction of the marina. Surely he didn't have another surprise planned. How could he have possibly planned seeing a race and winning, thus making Musa follow his plans. _Well, he could have made plans earlier and now things are just working out better_ Musa thought as she walked up to a corner where his limo was waiting. "Another surprise?"

"I do love your reactions to my surprises," Daniel pointed out as they got to the limo. "And I love all the attention I get," He finished with a smirk as Musa sat in the limo. She knew exactly what he was talking about, but she still wanted to know what else he had planned. But at the same time, she wanted to go back and see if Riven was okay.

Finally, the limo pulled up to the Magix marina and Daniel stepped out of the car. Musa got out and looked around at the boats that were docked at the port. "Boat ride?" Musa asked as her face lit up.

"Well, I know how much you love them," Daniel said. Musa remembered back to when she was a kid and her mother had just died. She remembered Daniel and his parents had come over a few days before the funeral and she didn't fully grasp the situation. So, Musa's nanny took her and Daniel out on her yacht for the whole day, and that day she and Daniel did nothing but play and have fun.

Every year after that she and Daniel went on the same yacht to have some fun and as the years passed Nate, Leslie, Duke, Brian and the twins, all came along and the trips became parties and it was almost as if they had become their own little family. Musa turned and looked up to Daniel and smiled. "So which one is it?" She said looking out to the boats that were docked at the marina.

"The best one," Daniel said and led her to the yacht and helped her aboard. It was nowhere near as large as the one they went on every year after school let out, but it was decorated spectacularly with small twinkling lights, roses and in the center of the observation desk there was a plush couch with blankets and hot cocoa sitting waiting for them.

"Did you know that that the Magix Day of the Rose festival ends with a fireworks show over the enchanted bay every year?" Daniel said leading Musa over to comfy spot on the deck. "It took awhile to track down, but this is the best spot to see the show,"

"You've been planning tonight haven't you?" Musa asked as she stepped into the warm blankets and grabbed the hot cocoa just as the sun set on the day of the rose.

"Maybe," Daniel said putting his arms around her and pulling a blanket up to keep them warm, as if they needed it, it was still pretty nice out. But, Musa didn't deny his gesture, he was being very romantic and it was a nice change. "Sometime spontaneity needs a little planning, but it's usually worth it,"

"Was today worth it?" Musa asked with a coy smile.

"Definitely," Daniel said before pressing his lips against hers and pulling her into a passionate kiss. Just as they pulled away from each other the fireworks began.

"Daniel," Musa said looking up from the hot cocoa and the fireworks and into his eyes. "Thank you so much for coming here today, I was pretty much planning on having a sucky day here alone,"

"I'm glad to see you happy," Daniel said pulling her into his arms tighter. "I would have been having a sucky day too, if I hadn't come out here,"

"What would I do without you?" Musa joked before burying her head in his chest and then looking over to the sky and watching the fireworks go off. She closed her eyes and took in the faint smell of his cologne and she remembered how much she used to love it.

"Musa," Daniel said a few moments later, turning her chin so that she would look at him as the fireworks began to fire more quickly, the finale was coming up any second. Daniel looked her right in the eyes and smiled. "I love you,"

Musa sat on the boat, unsure of what to say. The guilt was just piling up as the day went and something had to change She could have said it back, but it wouldn't be the truth. Instead, Musa pulled Daniel into a kiss and hopefully after the best kiss she could muster, he would forget about what he had just said. She then pulled away and smiled knowing full well how much she would hurt him if he knew the truth. She wasn't going to do that to him, so she sat there and pretended that everything was alright.

Even with one of the most romantic nights of her life playing out before her, Musa still couldn't manage to get the sight of Riven scowling at her out of her mind.

* * *

_1. I don't know what 'blazin' means in that context, but I can only guess that it's a good thing. _

_2. How convient…_

_So as warned in the beginning of the chapter, this was not a very fluffly chapter for Musa and Riven. But she and Daniel were offly close. But of coarse she was thinking about Riven. _

_Next up – Spelled – one of my faves!_

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	9. Spelled

**Spelled**

It was a peaceful night at Alfea until Musa was awoken by a sudden clap of thunder. She quickly sat up in bed when she heard the sound and saw the bright flashes of lightning lighting up the sky and the rain pounded against the window, making it sound as if there was a hurricane outside her window. Musa, who was never the biggest fan of storms like this, quickly grabbed her phone and wrapped herself up in her blanket.

After erecting a sound barrier around her bed, Musa quickly dialed Daniel's number hoping he was awake. When she was younger, she lived in the castle like most princesses, but one night there was a horrible storm outside and when she went to run into the comfort of her parent's room, she took a wrong turn in the castle. At the time she was just three and finding herself alone in a dark place during a storm was enough to scare the living crap out of her. She cried for most of the night, but her cries were muffled by the storm and the blanket she kept around her that night, finally a few hours later, he mother sensed something wrong and was horrified to find her room empty. The entire castle was in panic when Musa wasn't in her room and in a matter of seconds the entire Harmonic secret service was scouring the castle and she was found a few minutes later huddled in a coat closet scared to death.

Since then, Musa was terrified of thunderstorms, although she never told anyone. She would usually sit in her room and put up a sound barrier and try her best to get back to sleep, but tonight she was awake and she felt very uneasy. "Hello," Daniel said sleepily.

"Hey, it's storming here," Was all Musa had to say and Daniel understood completely. He stayed on the phone with her until she nodded off.

The next morning, Musa is a little irritable with the lack of sleep, not to mention she overslept. After running through the room trying to get dressed on time, Musa saw her friends walking around the quad. _Crap, I missed potions, again. _She thought to herself as she caught up with the girls that were walking through the quad probably getting ready for lunch since Musa overslept into the afternoon.

"Hey, Musa," Flora said.

"Hey, guys what's up," Musa asked as she walked along with the girls in no certain direction.

"Bloom was just telling us about this dream she had last night, she was changing from her Winx form and everything, it was something I've never seen before," Flora explained.

"Yeah," Bloom said and then continued. "It was weird, in the dream there was a voice telling me that it was time for me to begin my journey, it was the same voice that led us out of the fire, I'm sure of it,"

"Boring change of topic," Stella murmured as she walked ahead of the pack and whispered rude comments about Bloom's story under her breath. An act that didn't go unnoticed by the musical princess, expect Musa decided to listen to Bloom instead of giving Stella the attention she wanted.

"What did she look like," Techna asked. As Bloom began to explain what the woman in her dream looked like, Techna pulled out a psychic beetle that would help pick up things from Bloom's subconscious that she didn't remember. Finally, after a few minutes of explaining, the beetle managed to create an image of the woman from Bloom's dreams.

"I still don't know how you did that," Bloom began excitedly. "But, that' her! I've defiantly seen that face somewhere before. I know, she's one of the nymphs on the façade on town hall,"

"Okay!" Stella interrupted as she turned around finally facing the rest of the girls. "Enough with your silly dream,"

"Why do you keep interrupting me today?" Bloom yelled obviously getting angry with the constant remarks Stella was making while Bloom was trying to figure out her dream.

"Maybe because I'm tired of you always stealing the stage! It's always me, me, me, with you. I'm the little earth girl, look at me I have powers, look at me I have no clue how to control them!"

"That's not funny," Bloom pointed out trying to keep her temper under control.

"Everyone has weird dreams, who cares?"

"This is important, Stella!" Bloom said clearly getting angry as she balled up her fist.

"Important to you, you, you," Stella complained.

"Stella, what in the world is your problem?" Techna asked being very put off by the whole situation. Musa was also getting pretty angry at Stella's attention tantrum.

"Nothing, I'm simply telling it how it is as Musa would say Stella said. "I'm just keeping it real,"

Suddenly the two got into all out screaming fight and stomped off in opposite directions. Later that day, Techna and Flora were in Musa's room's doing some homework when Stella came traipsing in and she was not exactly welcome after the first few words came out of her mouth.

"Hey Flora, you know what would look really cute on you!" Stella said as she walked into the room and sat on Flora's bed. "A fashion sense, my dear, did you ever think of that?"

"That's not very nice," Flora said with her pleasant voice in tact.

"Don't give me tude, it's just constructive criticism," Stella shot back causing Flora's optimistic disposition to deteriorate quickly.

"Are you kidding, you're the one with the attitude!"

"Stella, you're tude's outta control," Musa pointed out as she continued to work on the potions homework that she had due the next day.

"Uh, don't dis me because you got dissed girl,"

"No I didn't," Musa said casually standing up going to get the paper she had just printed. She figured Stella was having some tantrum because she felt like she was getting enough attention and she was not going to indulge her need for it.

"You got so dissed by Riven, it's not only embarrassing its like tragic and pathetic," Stella said so casually as if she were discussing the weather. Musa didn't look back at Stella, but she was clearly upset. It had been a week since the day of the rose and Musa had found out about Darcy and Riven. She was trying as hard as she could to push past it, but still she felt so hurt and humiliated, especially since she sorta knew that her friends knew that she was crushing on Riven.

"Please, what's pathetic is you thinking you can come into my room and think you can act like your all that," Musa said effectively covering the hurt in her voice that had surfaced when the thought of Riven came to mind.

"Fret not, it's not like your totally hopeless, look at Techna, she chooses clothes based on their fire proofing qualities and yet Timmy still crushes on her," Stella said now dragging the final member of the Winx club into this argument.

"Hey!" Techna shouted dropping the brush she was using to fix her hair. "I like my clothes,"

"Musa, just get rid of those pigtails, acquire some better denim and don't forget make up, the right mascara can do wonders," Stella continued to taunt and Musa's patience was beginning to wear thin. "Even get Riven to call…ooh Riven…"

Musa stuffed a book in front of her face and tried desperately to make it seem like she didn't care, but Stella's unrelenting taunting was making her more upset than angry. "So who cares!"

"Of coarse he might be with Darcy," Stella continued almost knowing how to hurt the person she called a friend.

"That is enough!" Flora spoke up having just about enough of what Stella had to say.

"What's the big deal, Musa knows they're together," And then Musa snapped. She had been trying very hard all morning to keep her mouth shut about Stella's antics, even ignoring her hurtful words, but it was clear Stella was poking around for a reaction. And if she wanted one, she was going to get one.

"Shut it before I shut it for you," Musa threatened about ready to pummel Stella to the ground and pull out the hair she was so proud of. Nobody would have spoken to her like this if she was back home, there her friends were always there for her and they never taunted her. The strength of her voice alone was enough to push Stella off her seat in on a dresser. "Got it!"

"I'm just saying, if you'd see Riven with Darcy you would not like him so much, he clearly likes her a lot more than you,"

"So what!" Musa yelled unable to hold back the tears of angry and hurt. She could feel them beginning to collect along her eyelids. "I don't care what they do, I'm over him!"

* * *

With that Musa ran out of the room angrier than she had ever been in her life. She ran straight from the room into the next bus that was headed for Magix. She couldn't be in that room anymore and she was seriously considering leaving Alfea. Once on the empty bus bound for Magix, Musa called up the one person she knew would help her support her no matter what.

"Hello?" A voice said on the other end of the phone, just hearing the sound of his voice managed to calm Musa down a good amount.

"I think I'm gonna come home," Musa said sadly leaning her head back against with window of the bus and trying to keep herself from crying. She had already teared up when she was running out of the room and she didn't want to start sobbing on the phone, no matter how upset she was.

"Wait what! Baby what happened?" Daniel asked very concerned, he could tell Musa's shaky voice meant that she was just crying. "What's going on,"

"It was a mistake for me to come out here, I mean I was happy back home and I just –" Musa stopped again when her vice cracked with emotion as she gathered herself as she felt tears forming in the corners of her eyes. "I might just grab a flight outta here be home by tonight, I'm on my way to Magix right now," Musa said after a few seconds.

"Hold on," Daniel said calmly trying to get a scope on the situation. "You're going a little fast here, I mean I would love to have you home but, you can't just leave,"

"Why not,"

"Because I know you and you always see things through to the end," Daniel encouraged. "What happened? You'll feel better after you talk about it,"

"God it's just," Musa said before pausing, she couldn't very well explain exactly what happened that morning and how upset she got over Stella's taunting. "I don't fit in here, I mean back a Devon I was happy and everyone was nice and it was good,"

"And at Alfea," Daniel said trying to get more out of her.

"I thought some of the girls at Devon were bitches," Musa spat out angrily as she thought of everything she heard Stella say to her. "But, I actually thought this girl was my friend and she just talked to me like I was her biggest nemesis, I mean she was like horrible,"

"So," Daniel said not accepting that as a valid excuse to leave. "So maybe she's not who you thought she was, deal with it. You are too strong to let some girl step all over you,"

"Daniel I'm not in the mood to be lectured," She spat, she didn't really want to think rationally, she knew there was a high possibility that Stella was under a spell, but she wanted to be angry at her. Probably because it would keep her from thinking about Riven and Darcy or the fact that the guy that loved her wasn't the one she was thinking about.

"Too bad," He continued but this time softened his tone, knowing that Musa was strong but just a little emotional right now. "Baby, chances are she will be apologizing the second you guys talk again. Why don't you take some time to cool off,"

"I hate it when you make sense,"

"Yeah, I know. But I mean it, look I have to go, but promise you're gonna cool off and then call me later okay?" Daniel asked over some background noise.

"Okay," Musa said dejectedly as she saw the city come into view. "Where are you by the way, it sounds like you're on a jet,"

"Going to Crescendo to see my dad, I'll tell you about it later," Daniel lied. "Call me later okay baby? And you'll be fine I promise,"

"Thanks, bye Daniel," Musa said feeling a little better. She did feel a little bit of a release after talking to Daniel, probably because he could always tell how she was feeling, sometimes before she could. Musa walked off the bus and the second she looked around MAgix she thought to the day of the rose when Riven had the accident. Ever since then he was with Darcy and all of a sudden, the heartbreak from earlier was back.

"She's buggin' if she think's I care about Riven," Musa _humphed_ angrily as she walked through Magix.

Musa did as Daniel advised and let herself cool down for awhile, she was the type of person to get really angry in the heat of the moment and do something she might regret later, like leave Magix and go back to Devon. She continued down Magix kicking a soda can that was sitting on the side of the road. Letting her mind get immersed in the sound that the can made every time it hit the ground, Musa could feel herself beginning to calm down.

She made her way down the different streets of Magix, not realizing where she was. Finally she came across a place she had only seen once before, btu knew it was someplace that she shouldn't have been.

"Eww witches," Musa said as she came across Hex Café. She looked around and it was waal-to-wall witches. She was ready to leave when her hearing picked up on none other than Riven's voice. "Oh that witch," Musa said angrily as she peaked though a window into the café to see Riven and Darcy seat comfortably drinking something that did not look age appropriate. Although she could not hear through the glass, she could read the body language pretty well. Musa saw Darcy reach over and begin to caress Riven's hand and she had enough. Just as she pulled herself away from the window, she heard a familiar voice behind her.

"No wonder it reeks of loser,"

"If it isn't the one with the pigtails," Stormy taunted as she leaned against the wall of the café. After seeing Riven practically eating out of Darcy's hand.

"Bug off perm head," Musa said noting the ridiculous creature that she called hair sitting at the top of her head. She had enough time to clear her head and maybe it was time to go back to Alfea, especially since these witches weren't making her day any brighter. "Go back to your psychwa –, "

"I don't think so," Icy said putting up her arm against the wall, delaying the princess's departure. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Back to civilization," Musa spat out not in the mood to deal with anyone let alone the witches.

"No you're not," Icy said grabbing hold of Musa's wrist and pressing into with a great deal of force, it was clear that they were not going to make this easy for him. "Not until you explain what you're doing on our territory,"

"Please, don't make me laugh" Musa said sarcastically. "I go wherever I want,"

"You don't come onto Cloud Tower turf," Stormy began. "And if you do, you don't get to leave,"

"That's right, not until we're done with you," Icy warned.

"You don't want to get into it with me witch," Musa said turning to Icy with fire in her eyes, not realizing that she was letting her mouth get away from her again. Musa was never one to keep what she felt to herself, which was bad in many situations, especially royal parties, and this situation.

"You're not in the Harmonic realm anymore, princess," Icy snapped angrily. "And your daddy and his hip hop palace guards aren't here to protect you anymore."

"Complexion smear, warts adhere," Musa said angrily unable to think of a better spell. _God you couldn't have thought of anything better than that! _Musa thought angrily to herself. "It worked!"

"How dare you? My flawless face," Icy gasped.

"Wow this must be the single most disgusting wart I've ever seen," Stormy said pointing out the wart sounding like an annoying younger sister, which she was.

"Nobody asked you," Icy said as she pushed Stormy away.

"I warned you, I told you to leave me alone," Musa pointed out regretting the running her big mouth. She knew pretty well that she was not strong enough to take the both of the witches on at once.

"Wart, gross and gory, return my face to it's glory," Icy said and with a snap of her fingertips, Musa's spell was reversed. "All gone. Now what should I do to this pigtailed pixie to teach her to show some respect."

"Let's mess her up," Stormy said maliciously.

"Yeah, yeah," Musa said challenging Icy. "You're good at trash talking; let's see what you got,"

"I will," Icy noted calmly. "In fact the entire Cloud Tower senior class is here and I'm going to make an example out of you,"

"What are we gonna rumble now?" Musa mocked not putting her thoughts through a filter before she let them spill out of her mouth. Were they really gonna just start a fight in the middle of the street? What, were they gonna break out in song and dance too, singing about how hard life is? "You do realize just how stupid you all sound,"

"We'll see how much you wanna talk back after we're done with you," Icy said ready to fire an attack, but just before she could Musa summoned a quick burst of energy and fired before she could. The attack was small, but it was just enough to push Icy over the edge and really piss her off.

"Get her witches," Icy said calmly as all the witches got up and began to chase the musical fairy. The chase was more than what Musa was expecting, but she did mouth off a great deal to the witches. All the sounds around her drowned out as Musa began to run as fast as she could. She never imagines she would ever get herself into this kind of situation. She kept running until she felt short bursts of magical attacks hitting her feet, she then saw that the witches were not only chasing her they were firing attacks at her as well. "Dance pixie, dance,"

Musa ran and turned a corner hoping to head them off the witches and just as she raised her head, she saw Riven standing right in the ally way she was running. _Thank god! _Musa thought the second she saw him. Surely he would help her, since he seemed to be pretty good at it before. "Riven, You have to help me." Musa begged quickly but her hopeful mood was sufficiently squashed when she saw the dead look in his eyes, she had made enough eye contact with him to know that his eyes were hiding a lot of emotion, but today they were completely blank. Then. Musa saw a malicious look on his face form.

"I don't think so," Riven said as casually as if he were saying hello. It looked like he didn't even care that she was going to get ambushed by a bunch of witches. "I'm with Darcy now."

Musa felt even worse that she had earlier that day, she knew about Riven and Darcy, but was he really willing to let her get hurt? For that witch! She looked one last time at the eyes that once made her heart race and her stomach do back flips, now all that happened was massive amounts of anger coursed through her, wanting to rip into him but knowing she had to leave, Musa pushed back the anger and pain and continued on her way. Without the help of Riven. "You're a two faced playa!" she yelled as she ran by.

Musa continued running fighting off everything she was feelings. As if what happened this morning wasn't bad enough, but now the guy she had been crushing on for months just threw her to the wolves. "Oh man!" Musa said realizing she had run into a dead end. _Crap! _Musa thought realizing that she was not only trapped, but Brian was right when he told her to watch her mouth, she had just gotten into a big spat and if she had left her mouth shut, it probably wouldn't be so bad. Btu those witches did deserve it, she had never been treated so rudely in her life. "I've gotta try an invisibility spell, quick!"

"Too late, no spell can help you know," Musa heard Icy's voice spit out maliciously. She turned to see Icy and Stormy descend from flying and they were standing in front of the other witches from the café that were after her. Musa, who had given leaving Magix some thought before but dismissed the idea after she had calmed down, wanted nothing more than to leave and go back home. Where she was safe, loved and happy. She had never had these types of problems there and there was a strong possibility that she would leave for awhile, granted she live.

"It's like they say on the last page of every fairy tale – the end" Icy said beginning to conjure the attack. "I'm afraid there will be no happily ever after for you," Icy finished. Then, Musa began to feel the ground underneath her shake a bit, she thought it was just Icy's attack but then wall behind her collapsed. It startled Musa to say the least, but she was happy to see a Red Fountain craft landing, finally some real heroes.

"Musa!" Yelled Bloom as she and the rest of the Winx Club and the guys exited the ship. Musa ran to them quickly, never so happy to see them in her life. When all seemed lost, they had all pulled through and it was enough to make her aching heart feel a little better.

"Guys!" Musa yelled happily as she ran to them.

"Who invited you?" Icy said rudely. "This event is R.S.V.P. only,"

"RSVP this," Bloom said ready to throw an attack at Icy, but stopped when she saw a former ally approaching. It looked as if she wasn't sure if she should continue with the attack or not.

"Brandon!" Riven yelled as he made his way through the witches and approached his former friends. Anger pulsed though Musa's body when she saw his face again. How could he! He was supposed to be a hero and here he was abandoning his old friends and aiding in attacking her. That was what was really bothering her, she really thought she and Riven had something going on between them and as if finding out he and Darcy were together wasn't a slap in the face, but now he was trying to help Darcy get rid of her.

"You're hanging out with this crowd now?" Brandon said coldly matching Riven's tone, it was obvious that all the guys were not happy with Riven's actions towards Musa and the rest of their group.

"Yeah. This crowd is much more happening then you could ever hope to be," Riven shot back coldly with anger Musa had never seen before, maybe this was the real Riven and if it was, Musa was glad to have someone else. "They're true friends."

"You've lost your mind and now you're going to lose this fight!"

"Bring it, tough guy,"

Suddenly, as if Brandon and Riven had initiated a confrontation between both sides, all the senior witches began to charge at the fairies. "You're not going anywhere," Brandon said throwing his sword's blade downward on the ground as it lit a glowing shield up. "Got it," he said almost smugly when he saw the witches look frazzled by the defensive maneuver.

"You're really starting to make me mad," Icy said as bits of ice and snow began to fall as Icy levitated up into the air, Musa had seen many of Icy's attacks, but none had ever been directed straight at her, until now. She quickly moved out of the way and back over to her friends.

"Hey girls," Bloom said nervously as the witches began to conjure their attacks. "Let's go!" right after Bloom's command, all the girls transformed to their Winx forms, a feat Musa didn't have enough time for before. Just as they finished transforming Musa saw Techna and Stella attacked simultaneously, both attacks looked severe and it was enough to knock Techna out. Timmy went to Techna and Musa looked over to Stella, a horrified look painted her face when she looked to Stella, sure that she was pinned up against the wall with the car.

"Stella!" Musa yelled as she began to run toward Stella and was suddenly stopped by Darcy who quickly fired an attack at her. The attack was one she had been hit with before and it was hardly one of Darcy's best, even Musa knew that. The purple waves hit Musa twice before she flew up into the air to gain an upper hand. But, when Musa looked back down at the ground to find Darcy, Darcy disappeared for a second and then reappeared in front of her and attacked her head on.

Without a second thought, Darcy began to attack Musa with everything she had and Musa tired as hard as she could to fight back, but she was new at. Although, the anger she had towards Darcy was enough to make her forget all about that and make her want to just kill that witch. Musa had never felt so much anger well up inside in her entire life, it was a combination of the lack of sleep, missing home, and heartache that made her feel weak and at the same the sheer fury from all of that kept her fighting under conditions in which she would normally buckled under.

"Now me, myself and I and the rest of us, are going to finish you off," Darcy saud as if she knew she would be winning the fight, and even though she was a lot more experienced than Musa, Muse believed that she had a chance. The witch used her magic to conjure up clones of herself that surrounded Musa and simultaneously got ready for an attack. By the look in Darcy's eye, Musa could tell that this fight was more then just picking on fairies, Darcy had some type of vendetta towards her, but why her in particular?

"I got you Musa!" Sky yelled out as he swung the sword in his hand through one of the multiplies. Musa looked around her to see all the multiples fading and it looked as if he had even managed to hit the original Darcy since right after the attack her magic seem to fail her and she collapsed to the ground. Musa wanted to go over there and kick her around and get some anger out, even if it was a low blow, that witch deserved it.

"No we got you," Sky turned around to see the Cloud Tower witches that had followed the Trix here, standing behind his with smug looks on their faces. Musa sat up on the side walk after falling to the ground from Darcy's attack before she fell, and when she looked up she saw the predicament Sky was in.

"Prince Sky!" she yelled worriedly. What was it with these witches? Was the only way they wanted to fight unfair. It was at least 30 against 8. But, leave it to them to play dirty.

"I'm okay," Sky assured Musa, even though she didn't buy it; she took it since she needed to keep fighting.

"Good assist." Musa thanked sounding a bit like Sky himself. "Thanks."

"Go get Stella," Sky said still looking up at the sky as if nothing was going on around them.

Musa did as Sky asked and ran as quickly as she could over to where she had seen Stella get hit. The car that Icy used to worsen the blow was still there and Stella was nowhere to be found, so that meant she was probably still pinned. Musa couldn't help but panic when she realized that the care was on fire as well. "Stella!" she yelled frantically as she approached the car.

"Musa," Stella screamed in agony from behind the car. "I'm pinned, I can't move my wing," Musa said nothing else, but she gathered all the energy she could and put her back against the wall and used her legs to push forward and the wall as support. She managed to move the vehicle enough for Stella's wing to get loose and once it was, Musa slowly and carefully maneuvered her out of the fire. Forgetting all about the reason she had come to Magix that day.

"Thanks for the save, you rock," Stella said weakly as Musa out of the fire. Almost immediately Stella began to regain her vitality. Just like music helped heal Musa, the sun was a type of power booster for Stella, and a good thing too, since it looked like the Winx Club had their hands full.

"You got it," Musa said cautiously letting go of her hoping she could stand on her own. But, it looked like Stella was alright enough to fight on her own and when he knew that, she felt a lot better and got a second wind for battle.

"Let's go," Stella said flying up, Musa was about to follow and she ran up to begin flying but was stopped by a growling Darcy. Musa knew that she had gotten lucky with Sky helping her out last time and she was exhausted, but she needed to keep fighting. She refused to lose the likes of her.

Darcy however looked as if she wasn't going to give Musa a chance to get a single shot in. Her eyes began to glow and suddenly the cars behind her began to levitate. "This is a fun game, it's called crash test fairy,"

Musa tried to escape the cars that were beginning to surround her so she could run away and geta better vantage point on Darcy, but every which direction she turned, the cars bumped her until she suffered a major blow from behind and fell to the ground, hitting the pavement hard. "Haha I win!" Darcy cackled as she looked to the suffering fairy on the ground and it was the last thing Musa heard before losing consciousness.

When Musa finally came to, all she could feel at first was a sharp pain in her ankle and looked up to see Bloom letting out a ridiculous amount of power. Her mind still hazy from the fall, she looked around to see many of the witches beginning to retreat. Then, Bloom's power became so overwhelming that it blew Icy, Darcy and Stormy straight out of the sky.

That was probably the best moment of her day, seeing Darcy fall to the ground and hearing the smack she made against the pavement. Knowing how cruel she was for thinking this, Musa was really hoping that Darcy didn't walk away from the fall. She couldn't help but bask in their defeat; the moment was great until she saw Riven go to Darcy. She knew he would since he had made it clear that he was no longer on their side, but it hurt to see him tending for the woman responsible for all the pain she had just gone through, well most of it.

"Darcy!" Riven cried out as she hit the ground. He was so willing to help the likes of Darcy, but he couldn't even manage to help her. "Babe, come on,"

The fight was over and it looked like the victory went to the Winx Club. Musa rubbed her head as she looked up to see Brandon going to tend to Bloom since she had practically collapsed from the sheer intensity of power she had let loose. Musa then looked up to see Sky and Stella walking toward her. "Oh my god Musa are you aright!" Stella cried out as she ran over to her fallen friend.

"Yeah, I am," Musa lied ignoring the pain in her ankle. But, Sky didn't buy it. When Musa turned to get up, he made her sit back down.

"You took a pretty hard fall back there," He pointed out giving her a knowing look.

"My ankle hurts a little, but I'm sure I can walk on it," Musa assured. She pulled herself up and after taking a few steps, the wounded ankle gave way and she was about to fall when Sky swiftly caught her. "Okay, maybe I need help,"

"Stella help me out," Sky asked and Stella did as she was told as the two helped her onto the ship. Musa was feeling a million different things at that moment, but most of it was warmth in her heart. Riven may not have been who she thought, but the Winx Club and the guys were true friends. Here were Sky and Stella, a couple which seemed to get too wrapped up in each other to notice anyone else, focusing on her; it was nice to know she was cared for considering everything that happened today.

* * *

Musa felt humiliated. She had never felt so helpless and stupid in her life. She had run out of Alfea in tears after Stella basically announced that everyone knew Musa had a crush on Riven. Then, she was basically thrown around like an idiot by a bunch of witches and the only reason she had gotten out of there relatively unharmed was because her friends needed to bail her out of the mess. Not to mention Riven would have rather been the one hurting her than saving her or even being of some assistance. So to sum up, everyone knew her secret and what made it worse was that they all got to see her get publicly rejected. "Hey Musa, is your ankle okay?" Flora asked.

"Yeah, it's fine," Musa said looking up from the crate she was sitting on. It was pretty quiet on the ship since nobody really wanted to talk about what had just gone on.

"Ms. Faragonda is not gonna be happy about this," Stella pointed out, the spell she was under began to wear off and she had time to explain to Musa that she was under a spell and she didn't mean anything she had said. Musa accepted the apology and tried to think about something else.

"You guys can't tell Ms. F about this," Musa began. She was so angry earlier, that she was ready to leave Magix and go back home and still that seemed like a nice option. She had been made a fool of and running away was the easy way out, but Daniel was right, she had to stick it out, plus with friends here to back her up she would be alright. Now if only she could heal her wounded pride. "If word ever got back to my dad, I would be out of Alfea in a second and stuck at the palace 24/7 with round the clock security watching my every move,"

"But your ankle, we have to go to Ophelia and she will make us –," Bloom began as she drank some vile substance called heroes brew. Sky had told Musa to drink some but the smell of it was enough to make her gag, but it did seem to help Bloom.

"A healing spell should do the trick," Musa insisted. No matter how badly she felt right now, she knew it would get better and what would she be if she left Alfea now? She'd be making no one proud and she'd be back home under the watchful eye of the Harmonic secret service, Alfea was a much better option. "It's not the bad,"

"Are you sure? I really think we should get you and Bloom into Ophelia's," Flora insisted with a worried look on her face.

"No I'm fine," Bloom said perking up, she had a loose of power for a quick second but she was recovering. And it seemed like she had simply overexerted himself during the street brawl.

"Me too," Musa repeated for probably the hundredth time. She thought it best not to tell anyone back home about this little incident, they would all worry not to mention she would get a million 'I told you so's' from Brian. Plus they would all worry, especially Daniel. So it was best to keep the incident to herself, plus no need on reliving the humiliating event.

"Sorry about making you guys come all the way to Magix and having to –," Musa began and looked at the ground. Today was bad and she had just realized that it was her fault that the whole big incident occurred. The girls could have been injured and they guys could have been too, and the only reason they were there was to get her out of trouble.

"Don't Musa," Stella interrupted. "It was my fault to begin with, that is the last time I tell a senior that her hair is frizzy and her shoes don't match her skirt. I mean come on who wear's plaid anymore? And braids with frizzy hair? She looked like Pippy Longstockings, I mean I was doing that girl a favor…" Stella began to drift off of topic when she noticed the looks on everyone's face and realized that she was doing that. "Anyway, it was totally and completely my fault, sorry Musa," Musa nodded and was about to say it was fine when Timmy interrupted her before she could get a word out of her mouth.

"We're landing in Alfea's quad," Timmy announced as the ship landed on the grass. The doors opened and Musa stood trying to walk on her ankle, but again it would not hold her weight so Sky and Brandon promptly helped her off the ship. They both got under her arm and even though she was rather light, they both aided in carrying her since then they would have a smaller chance of actually dropping her and hurting her even more.

"Guy's im fine, really," Musa insisted as they helped her without listening to her stubborn attempts at resisting their aid. Musa did not want one of the teachers to see her hurt or anyone else for that matter and if she walked around being practically carried by them then it would look a bit suspicious. But Musa gave up resisting when Stella hit her in the back of the head and said 'deal with it'. They were all on the grass on the quad ready to go inside to the girls' dorm when Musa heard a very familiar voice.

"Musa! What the hell happened?" Daniel asked as he ran to her side. Musa lifted her face to meet Daniel's concerned gaze and he heart nearly stopped. For a second she had no idea what was going on. One second she was standing trying to convince everyone that she was alright and the next she looks up to see her boyfriend running up to her. Musa, still unable to get a coherent word out of her mouth, looked around at everyone's faces and they looked just as surprised as she felt.

"Daniel," Musa spat out after a few seconds of sheer confusion. "I um, yeah well I – I.. I'm fine," She said finally after a few seconds of uttering a bunch of incoherent sentences that made her sound as if she were a crazy person. "What are you doing here?" Musa asked finally as she saw Nate emerge from the school as well, everyone still I a bit of confusion. She carefully hopped out of Sky and Brandon's aid and into Daniel's arms, not realizing or being able to together the situation. That was when she remembered that Nate was planning on coming to Magix to visit her, but he never mentioned bringing along her boyfriend.

"We came to see you," Daniel said in the same worried voice as he put one arm around her waist and gave her a quick peck on the lips. Musa looked around right after and saw everyone of her friends in absolute shock. "What happened?"

"What the hell Musa?" Nate said when he got up to Musa. He gave her a quick look and asked the same question Daniel had been asking for the past however long it had been, Musa's mind was still reeling.

"I'm fine," She said and then turned to her friends. "Guys, this is Nate, one of my best friends from back home." She began and saw some less confused faces, but it was clear that everyone wanted to know who the guy that just kissed her was. After today Musa wasn't even sure if she should mention she had a boyfriend until much later, it had already been so long and now it was going to seem like she was hiding something, which she was, but it was clear that everyone knew about her crush on Riven. But what was she going to say now? She was sure none of her friends would rat her out to Daniel, but if she casually forgot to mention he was her boyfriend, the topic of Riven might accidentally slip out, so it was best to get everything out in the open and move on from this whole thing. "And this is Daniel, my boyfriend,"

As predicted, everyone looked shocked. They looked at Musa with the same face of suspicion and utter confusion as she had thought they would. Finally after a few seconds, Stella spoke up realizing the what was going on and by the look on Musa's face she was begging for some help. "Oh you're Daniel!" Stella exclaimed happily. "Musa has told us a lot about you, and you too Nate,"

Musa, who was not expecting that type of response, quickly warmed to the façade that Stella was building to keep her out of trouble and eventually all the girls caught on and acted like they had known about Daniel for as long as they had known Musa, the three boys however were now even more confused. "Daniel, Nate, this is Flora, Techna, Bloom, Stella, Sky, Timmy and Brandon," Musa said feeling a lot worse that her friends were now lieing for her.

"Hey, I'm Daniel," Daniel said still wondering why Musa was limping around.

"Nate," Nate said curtly as he looked around at the people and wondered why Daniel had seemed so worried about these guys. They all seemed to be drooling over different girls and none of them were Musa so it looked like there was nothing going on here.

"We'll explain everything as soon as we get changed," Stella insisted. "You boys can wait out here and get to know each other and us girls are gonna go upstairs, give Musa a healing spell and be back down in a flash," Stella said quickly ushering al the girls inside, going so far as to basically rip Musa from Daniel's arms and practically carry her upstairs.

* * *

"Okay, explain Missy!" Stella said with her arms folded as soon as the girls got upstairs and into her room. They had first given Musa a healing spell to make the pain in her foot go away and they didn't ask any questions till the spell began to take effect, suffice to say it was awkwardly quiet during that time. Musa sat on the side of her bed looking at the floor not sure of what to say, the truth would be best, but still the truth didn't sound so great. The girls surrounded her expecting an answer, but the musical princess remained silent. "Well…"

"Okay okay," Musa began as she looked up at all her friends. "Daniel is my boyfriend, has been for almost a year, and when I started at Alfea we were kinda on shaky ground and I didn't want to tell everyone about him just yet,"

"And then…" Flora encouraged.

"Okay so maybe I had a small crush on Riven," Musa said looking up knowing that all the girls already knew about it so there was no need to deny that she did have some feelings for Riven. "But trust me I am over it and any residual feeling I may have had, today had cured me of, I swear," Musa assured as she went on. "I didn't want you guys to think I was a bad person because Daniel is such a sweet boyfriend and I felt so horrible about –,"

"Hey," Bloom interrupted sympathetically. "We would never think you were a bad person, everyone gets a crush on the wrong person every now and then,"

"Yeah I mean if I were judged solely on the guys I've liked in the past…" Stella began. "Well I would have a very bad rep,"

"Sorry I made you guys lie about knowing him," Musa said standing up and feeling a lot less pain in her foot. "I don't want him to know anything about this little lapse in judgment, it would hurt him and I'm over it. I just want to go on like none of that ever happened,"

"Don't worry about it," Flora encouraged.

"Yeah, what are friends for?" Techna agreed. The girls were now caught up on everything and Musa felt a huge weight was lifted from her shoulders. Finally, she didn't have to feel like she was constantly lying to her friends and there was nothing left to feel guilty about. Except there was that twig of jealously that she couldn't seem to run away from, but for now she excused it as anger she had towards Riven for being such an ass to her earlier that day.

The girls all went to their rooms to get changed and meet the boys back downstairs and Musa had made sure to wear not only the necklace Daniel had given her, but also the bracelet. She had always worn the necklace, but the bracelet was a bit much, but she wanted Daniel to know that she was his.

* * *

"We hope you boys weren't waiting too long," Stella said as all the girls walked out of the school and walked over to their respective guys, except of coarse Flora who stood in the middle looking a bit uncomfortable.

"It was really nice meeting you girls, but would you mind if I stole Musa for the night?" Daniel asked as he put his arms around Musa. Nate was only able to hang out for a little while, his father was in town and his relationship with his dad was very similar to the relationship that Daniel had with his father. So he had talked to Musa for a bit and promised to swing by in the morning to say goodbye when he was on his way home and so he was gone. Daniel had been getting to know Sky, Timmy and Brandon and he felt a lot better about their relationship with Musa since they were all crushing on her friends instead of her. When Musa thought about it, Daniel had picked a great day to stop by since if he had come earlier in the year he might have seen something he needed to worry about.

"Oh please take her, she's been nothing but annoying all day!" Stella teased as Musa gave her a hard look. She laughed at the comment and began to walk over to the car that was waiting for them, leaving her friends behind for the night and going back to the place where she was just humiliated. But she felt a lot better about it since she was with Daniel.

"Wow, that place was good," Daniel said as he opened the door to his suite in the Palace Hotel and ushered Musa in. he and Musa had just gone to a restaurant that Penelope Yuki had recommended that they go to. "So are you ever gonna tell me what happened today?"

"What?" Musa asked sounding confused even though she knew what he was talking about. Musa walked around the palatial hotel suite and look a seat on the comfy oversized leather couch. She would expect Daniel to stay in a place like this, a suite entirely too big for just on person, he hardly needed all that space. Even though Musa was not so big on the whole spending money because you had a lot thing, she loved Daniel for it.

"We managed to talk about everything that was going on in the universe and you casually left out why you came back to Alfea limping and why you called me earlier today in tears and know everything's fine," Daniel pointed out as he walked over to the couch and sat next to her.

"That's where you were!" Musa said just remembering that she heard a lot of background noise when she called him earlier that day. He was probably just getting on the jet while it was taking off.

"Stop changing the subject,"

"Stella was under a spell and she said some stuff that made me very angry," Musa explained. "And then I ran into some witches and I may have mouthed off a bit, we got in a spat and I fell," Musa said oversimplifying the entire situation knowing that Daniel would not be very happy to find out about the extent of the seriousness that was involved with the street fight.

Daniel laughed for a second not realizing the gravity of the situation that his girlfriend was in and took the remote and turned on a movie. She then rested her head on his chest and thought about how crazy she was to want Riven. She could have someone who cared and loved her and she wanted someone who was willing to harm her. Daniel was always a constant in her life, he would never hurt her. He was there when she needed to call him in the middle of the night and if she asked him to pick up in the middle of the night and bring her something she needed or if she needed him, he would do it without question. Riven, on the other hand, carelessly tossed her aside to be with some slutty witch on a power trip. She was still so angry about today and everything that happened, but being with Daniel was making her feel a lot better. "How about a movie,"

"Sounds good," Musa answered as she quickly got up and shut off the lights and walked back onto the couch and into Daniel's embrace.

"I love you Daniel," Musa said before pulling him into a passionate kiss. She still was not sure if the feelings were true, but it felt so nice to be cared for. And she was never going to let someone stupid like Riven and or something stupid like a crush ruin something good. If she ever had to choose between the two, the better choice was so obvious.

* * *

_Okay so that is how I brought Daniel into the storyline, Hmm Musa said 'I love you' but me thinks she only said it cause she was upset about Riven. Hmm…_

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	10. Magical Reality Check

Wow

_Wow! It took me forever to update! Sorry about that people, but I had prom and we went to the beach for a few days right after for some post prom fun. (it's a big school tradition, everyone heads down to the beach) But yea the past couple of weeks have been dedicated to planning prom and all this other junk. Not to mention I had to turn in a shit load of papers I didn't feel like doing until last minute. Hence the late update. _

_Sorry once again, but her is my next chapter. Btw – Musa/Daniel haters will rejoice - _

**Magical Reality Check**

Musa was never the type of girl to spend the night with a guy in his hotel room. Sure she and Daniel had fallen asleep together after a long night of cramming for a test at Devon and it happened with some of her other friends as well. But most of those times they had fallen asleep on the floor and woken up in a frenzy trying to get to class on time.

There were also those times that everyone was at her palace or someone's castle and they all watched a movie or had a party and everyone ended up staying the night since it was too late and everyone had a little too much to drink to go home. Those nights were usually the most fun and they were pretty innocent when Musa thought about it, there was some drinking involved, but they were a bunch of rich prep school kids that had access to whatever they wanted. The mornings after those nights usually consisted of a few people with hangovers and a very late breakfast.

This morning was different. Musa opened her eyes, still heavy with sleep to the afternoon sun shining in her face. For a second she thought she was in her room in Alfea when she felt Daniel's arms around her. She then heard her boyfriend's heartbeat and realized that she and Daniel had fallen asleep in his bed at the hotel. For a second she took the moment to relax in his embrace when she realized that she had school that morning.

"Crap!" Musa said loudly as she sat up and darted out of bed and Daniel's arms. She quickly ran around the room looking for her shoes.

"Baby," Daniel said soft sitting up rubbing the sleep of his eyes as he slowly sat up in bed. "What are you doing?" he yawned and looked around in confusion at Musa who looked like he was ready to freak out at any moment.

"Where are my shoes!" Musa yelled as she ran around the room feeling so wrong for some reason. Why was this so weird? He was her boyfriend and it wasn't like anything happened between them, and even if something did happen, it wouldn't be weird. Would it?

"Right there, I see that your ankle is all better" Daniel pointed to a spot on the floor right in front of her and laughed as he watched his girlfriend sprint around the room and nearly trip over her own two feet. She was so cute when she was in a frenzy like that. "What's wrong?"

"I have school today, not to mention I totally broke curfew," Musa said as she sat on the edge of the bed and put on her shoes. She then felt Daniel's arms wrap around her and pull her back into their embrace. For a second Musa let herself fall back into his embrace, but when he began laying a few kisses on Musa's neck, she knew that she had to stop things before she stayed their the rest of the day and got in even more trouble with school. "Okay stop, I need to go,"

Musa then pushed herself off the bed and began to walk out of the bedroom and into the hallway making her way towards the door. She really needed to get back to school and she began to think about how she was going to explain this. And it really wasn't Griselda she was afraid of, it was explaining everything to the girls. They had just found out about Daniel and she knew that they would wanted a more detailed depiction of him when she returned last night. But, she hadn't returned, she spent the night. And now she was going to have to explain that as well.

"I'll take you back to Alfea, just give me five minutes," Daniel pleaded and Musa agreed. Musa sat on the couch and tried to relax, but for some reason the thought of spending the night with Daniel was making her very nervous. Daniel then walked into the bathroom and emerged five minutes later ready to take her back to Alfea. They quickly exited the hotel and got into the limo.

Musa sat in the limo staring forward worried about what type of trouble she would be in with Griselda for staying out all night, she had not just broken the curfew but she disregarded it completely, and it was not like she had a squeaky clean record here to begin with. She pondered what was going to happen as she twisted the fabric from the bottom part of her shirt and chewed on her lower lip. "It's really not that big a deal," Daniel explained as he put his arm around Musa and tried to calm her down. "I mean it's one night. It's not like they go to every room and check that you guys are sleeping in your own rooms do they?"

"Well, we've been getting in a lot of trouble lately," Musa began as she laid her head on Daniel's shoulder. "I really don't want Ms. Faragonda to hate me,"

"Who could hate you?" Daniel teased lovingly and planted a kiss on Musa's forehead. "Besides what is she going to do, really?" Daniel questioned knowing that if you were a royal you were pretty much socially bulletproof. "if they even find out, you'll get a harsh talking to and a detention at most. Besides, I'm sure on of your friends covered for you,"

"I guess your right…" Musa said closing her eyes, she was still pretty sleepy since they were up pretty late the last night watching a movie. It really was an innocent night, they watched a movie on the couch and then talked and ate in his bedroom and finished the movie in there, they just happened to fall asleep.

Finally the two ended up at Alfea and said their goodbyes until Musa went home to visit for spring break, which was now only a few weeks away. "I'll see you in a few weeks," Daniel said getting out of the limo and giving his girlfriend on more kiss,"

"Okay, I'll see you then," Musa nodded and walked onto the quad as watched the car pull away and smiled. For the first time in a long time, she wasn't thinking about Riven. She smiled happily and walked over to her friends that were chatting away at the well in front of the school. She made a clear attempt to act like she had been there the entire time, but it wasn't getting past the princess of solaria. "And where have you been?"

"Oh I overslept," Musa said knowing the girls knew she was lying and by the knowing looks on their faces, she knew they didn't but it for a second. They had called her the night before and she told them she was with Daniel, that was before she and Daniel fell asleep in his bed.

"Mmhmm…" Stella said with a sly look, it was obvious Stella was going to torment her about what she had done last night, but she was more focused on finding out what Bloom had to dish first. "Bloom….Bloom hello what's up," Stella said trying to snap Bloom out of the trans she seemed to be in as she watched her coin fall to the bottom of the well. "What did you wish for?"

"I can't tell you," Bloom said as she turned around from the fountain and looked at the girls that were congregated around it, she couldn't seem to wipe a goofy smile off her face either.

"Does it have blonde hair and blue eyes ," Stella pushed on with a knowing look as the rest of the girls did the same.

"From the look on her face I'm betting it does," Musa teased happy that she was not going to be the one put on trial, for now. "Bloom…." She said waiting for an explanation.

"Brandon wants to go on a walk, what do you think that means?" Bloom said after a couple of seconds of hesitation.

"I don't know what going on a walk means on earth but on my realm, when a crush asks you out, we usually call it a date," Musa said playfully.

"So then what is it when someone spends the night with her boyfriend at the Palace Hotel?" Stella asked coyly and from the looks of it everyone wanted to know. "What would that be called?"

"It's…" Musa began as she blushed profusely. She didn't know why, nothing had happened. But, being put on the spot was not helping. "It's none of your business,"

"Uh huh," Stella said with a knowing smile.

"Nothing happened," Musa insisted.

"Okay Musa, we believe you," Stella said sarcastically and rolled her eyes.

"We fell asleep," Musa insisted feeling as if she needed to plead her case as looking down at the ground and fidgeting with her shirt again.

"You fell asleep," Stella pondered out loud skeptically. "Was it maybe because of some intense physical activity? Running or jumping perhaps, or maybe something that would be easier to do inside, since you two were alone in his hotel room….all night,"

"We fell asleep after watching a movie," Musa explained again. "No innuendos needed since nothing happened,"

"Fine, fine, fine," Stella insisted throwing her hand up in defeat." Nothing happened,"

"So Bloom, your date with Brandon…" Musa said changing the subject and luckily for her the change of subject stuck.

"Well she can't go anyway," Stella said taking the bait and switching the subject back to Bloom. "He asked her less than 72 hours in advance,"

"Maybe he's just being spontaneous, Stella," Flora defended.

"Actually, I have to agree with Stella," Techna said surprising everyone, it was usually Techna and Musa who disagreed with Stella. "Spontaneity is overrated. Advanced planning is a sign of respect,"

"And having a busy social calendar is a sign of self respect," Stella added. "Besides, what kind of cheap date is going on a walk? Plus walking totally limit's ones choice of dating footwear,

"It doesn't matter, I really wanna hang out with him,"

"Ooh la la, it looks like our Bloom is going on a date!" Musa said happily as the girls got up and made their way over to their next class, which they all happened to have together.

"Yeah, let's just hope she comes back the same night," Stella pointed out as she walked ahead of the pack, but turned around to see Musa sine the remark was clearly meant for her. Musa however said nothing, she only smiled and kept on walking.

* * *

"I can't believe our little Bloom is off on her first date with Brandon," Stella said as she peaked out the window and saw Bloom and Brandon walking off the Alfea campus. She then moved the drapery back in its proper place and sat in the common room with Flora Techna and Musa. "They grow up so fast,"

"Oh Stella," Techna said dismissively as she fiddled around with her mini laptop thing. "you really shouldn't pry so much, you will look like you're a gossip,"

"It's a little late for that," Musa pointed out from her seat on the couch ahs she tuned her guitar. It was a pretty well known fact that Stella was the queen of gossip around Alfea, she was the first to break the news that Amaryl had a nose job and that was why she could participate in magical combat 101.

"Well since it's so well known that I'm a gossip," Stella began. "What was your first date like?" Stella finished addressing Techna probably knowing that this would make her uncomfortable.

Techna looked up and blushed profusely before looking back down at her computer. "I um, well…" Techna stammered.

"Stella, leave her alone," Musa defended as she strummed her guitar when she saw the look on Techna's face. "Not everyone has been dating since they were five,"

"Fine, I guess I can pick on you since we just found out about Prince Cunningham yesterday," Stella said standing up and walked up to the couch and poked Musa on the arm. "So what' the 4-1-1 on him?"

"I told you guys pretty much everything yesterday," Musa said hoping her friends weren't going to make her repeat the reason she kept the relationship from them. "We have been friends forever and then last year we kinda started to date and well…yeah," Musa finished as she looked back down at her guitar an strummed a few more chords.

"So you guys just started dating out of the blue?" Flora asked looking up from the textbook she was studying. She didn't mean to push too much on the subject, but it was a little confusing as to how they went from being just friends to dating.

"Yeah pretty much," Musa said thinking back to when she and Daniel had begun dating. It did all start when he kissed her out of the blue one day. "I mean, it was kind of random when you think about it…"

"So what do think Bloom and Brandon are doing?" Flora asked noticing the look on Musa's face. She figured a change of topic might be nice.

"Walking," Stella said quickly and tried to turn the conversation back to Musa. "Not much of a first date, but hey I guess if Bloom likes him,"

"I think it's sweet," Musa said. "I mean it's nothing too flashy, besides Bloom isn't the kind of girl who needs a big to do over a first date,"

"I guess you're right," Stella admitted. "So, how was your first date with Prince Daniel," Stella said as her eyes went starry at the thought of Musa begin with a prince, since from what she gathered about Musa was hardly royalty oriented. Musa knew this was coming so she figured she would answer all their questions and get it over with. "It must have so romantic…" Stella said imagining it since it didn't take long for Stella to figure out that Daniel was pretty romantic.

"That's hardly any of you business," Musa stated.

"I think we deserve to know a little something about this boy," Stella said looking at Musa. "And way to pick'em. I mean as far as guys go he's quite a looker and not to mention he plays soccer, that is so hot," Stella continued to babble on, Musa was a bit confused as to how Stella knew this, but that was when she remembered that they all had a chance to talk before she and Daniel left to go off on their own.

"Really awkward," Musa said addressing Stella's original question, remembering back to that day. She wasn't all that excited about it since she had been out with Daniel a million times before that night, but everyone was making a huge fuss about it and it made her a lot more nervous. She remembered Leslie and the twins coming over to her palace and taking hours to figure out what she was going to wear and after that her aunt Galiena even came over to see her get ready and to give her a necklace to wear. It all made Musa very uncomfortable since she really didn't think that dating Daniel was going to be much different than being friends with him. But, the date was pretty boring since it was just the two of them and it was pretty clear that neither of them was expecting that them dating was going to be such a big deal. "Everyone made this huge fuss and the date itself was just a long silent dinner,"

"That's…weird," Stella said very confused.

"It really was, but then afterward we just hung out and it got a lot better," Musa said thinking about what they did after the completely awkward dinner. The two hung out watching a movie and that was probably the best part of the date.

"And how about you, Stella? What's going on between you an Sky?"

It was clear that Musa was trying to change the subject since she was never one to love to spill about every detail of her personal life, but Stella took the opportunity to talk about herself since it was so much fun for her. "Well last year we hung out a lot until I got kick out of Alfea…"

"From where we're standing, it looks like he wants to pick up where you left off," Techna said not looking up from the computer in front of her, so she didn't notice the looks on Stella and Musa's face. Techna usually didn't care much for idle chat about boys, but for now she seemed interested.

"Hmm, me and Prince Sky," Stella said. "It has a nice ring to it, he was telling me about the ski chalets that his family has in the Soramina Mountians, how amazing would it be to vaca there!"

"It's actually not that great," Musa pointed out. "Daniel's family and my family went there last winter, it was okay,"

"I hear the wildlife is beautiful there," Flora pointed out.

"It is, but there isn't much to do other than ski or look at the landscape," Musa said. "Stella, you should ask Sky about it, you that is if you can make it though the entire year,"

The girls had a good laugh about Stella's expulsion last year and then waited for Bloom to get home. Actually, it was just Stella that wanted to wait up for Bloom and grill her on everything that happened between her and Brandon, but she pretty much forced Musa, Techna and Flora to stay up with her.

The next morning Musa woke up after having a rather unsettling dream. She hadn't thought about Riven in a whole day, which was a personal record for her since he always seemed to be on her mind and that night she had the same dream about him that she used to have. And no matter how hard she tried to shake the feelings, she couldn't seem to stop herself from wishing that Riven wasn't with that witch. And even though she knew how awful he was for betraying his friends, she still wanted him.

This needed to stop, but unfortunately seeing her boyfriend and telling that she loved him still couldn't settle the feelings that were still floating around in the pit of her stomach. So, on her way to class with professor Palladium, she stopped and sat in the middle of the quad and called up someone that might have a solution. She couldn't tell the girls because she already felt horrible about everything that happened before and now what was she supposed to say? She had a crush on the guy that was responsible for almost killing her and hurting her friends and their boyfriends?

"Hello,"

"Leslie you need to promise you won't tell anyone, what I'm about to tell you and you need to help me," Musa demanded when he heard Leslie's voice on the other end of the phone.

"You know you can trust me, what's up," Leslie said picking up on the obvious concern and urgency in Musa's voice. "Please tell me you didn't get yourself into more trouble, Nate already filled me in on the whole thing with the witches. Really Musa you need to start picking your battles…"

"Can we focus here?"

"Sorry keep going, I promise I won't tell anyone,"

"So…. remember in the beginning of the year how Daniel and I kept getting in stupid arguments,"

"Vividly,"

"Well they were totally my fault, I picked fights with him, and I knew I was doing it,"

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to be angry with him so I would feel guilty about," Musa began and stopped for a second. She knew there was still a part of her that wanted Riven, but a bigger part that was way too hurt by everything that happened to ever be that stupid again. "About having feelings for someone else," Right then Musa heard the other end of the phone go completely silent and she felt even worse about he confession, but she really needed to tell someone.

"Musa…." Leslie said in disappointment and disbelief at the same time and Musa could hear the shame in her voice. "Wait did anything happen?"

"No of coarse not," Musa affirmed, she technically never cheated on Daniel. "But I wasn't exactly telling him all about Daniel. There was a lot of flirting,"

"And now? I mean Daniel is practically on cloud nine, please don't tell me you che-,"

"No," Musa stopped Leslie before she could continue. "There is nothing going on anymore and nothing ever happened,"

"Do you still have feelings for him?"

"I don't – I don't know, but I will never even consider him after everything that happened with him and everyone else and me," Musa said recalling the day before when Riven aided Darcy in trying to kill her. She still couldn't reason what was wrong with her. Why was it that she didn't want a person that was absolutely perfect for her. Daniel was sweet and caring nad he was never going to hurt her the way that Riven did.

"Oh my god…"

"I know and I told him I loved him!" Musa said recalling claiming her love for Daniel the night before. She had no idea why she did it. Maybe because it was nice to be wanted and after the day she had, it was a nice change. Plus, she thought if she told him that she loved him, it would be true and the feelings for Riven would stop.

"WHO!? That guy!?" Leslie nearly screamed on the other end of the phone and Musa realized that she made it sound like she had told Riven that she loved him.

"No Daniel!" Musa scolded. "I just said nothing happened with that guy,"

"Except for the fact that you still have feelings for him," Leslie reminded.

"Yeah," Musa said sadly wishing she felt the same excitement for Daniel that she used to and still felt for Riven. "I dunno what to do, but you can't let him know any of this, he's probably back at Devon by now so please," Musa begged. "I don't even talk to that guy anymore, but I can't let go of the feelings for him. I dunno what to do,"

"You know I won't tell anyone, but look Musa, you can't keep stringing Daniel along if you are feelings these for someone else," Leslie stated. (2) "It's not fair to him, and I know it can't be easy, but you might have to end things unless you can figure out a way to stop how you're feeling. But, I don't see how you're going to do that,"

"How did this happen?" Musa said more to herself than anyone else as she collapsed onto the bench that was by the well that she was sitting at just the morning before.

"Maybe you guys were never meant to be together," Leslie said.

"I'm not giving up on us," Musa said determined. "I will get over this and Daniel and I wil be back to the way we were," Musa was not going to let anything break them up now, she couldn't be the one to hurt Daniel, especially after he had been so good to her. "I need to go, I'll call you later," she finished as she got up and began walking over to the building.

"Okay, just remember what I said, it's not fair to him," Leslie repeated before the two hung up and Musa walked into class.

"I'm sure you must have heard quite a bit about this place already," Palladium began as he ushered all the girls in the Magical spell class into a room with a large computer. Musa gazed at the computer and around the room and had no idea what this place was, but by the looks of it she was going to find out. "This is it! The Alfea Magical Reality chamber!"

"let me explain to you what it is like inside the chamber," Palladium exclaimed after a very excited and borderline flamboyant display of excitement for this chamber, that earned him a few sarcastic comments from the students. "While the world is virtual, the reality is not, when it is cold, you will feel cold, And if a rock falls and hits you, believe me, you will feel it," He continued as he showed them another chamber.

"Wow now I'm even more excited to go in," Musa said sarcastically to Amara, who was standing next to her with a terrified look on her face.

"Some like to say that the magical reality test is what separates the fairies from the pixies," He continued. "I think it's true. Your assignment will be a survival test, the chamber will select a random dead planet that you must survive on, on your own. You may bring potion ingredients, but nothing else. You must rely solely on your winx to survive, as it should be"

"So do you think we could like I dunno, die in there," Amara asked Musa nervously.

"Chill," Musa advised. "I'm sure they will pull you out if you get in over your head, plus what's the chance of this thing going haywire?"

"I guess you're right,"

The girls were then dismissed from class and everyone went to go study. Musa was hardly feeling ready for the test. She sat in the library for hours trying to remember spells and ingredients for potions, but she was nervous. She had never been put in a survival situation before, and as for growing vegetation to help survival, she hardly had a green thumb, that was more up Flora's ally.

Luckily, the library was full of books that would help, but Musa couldn't focus. She kept thinking about what Leslie had told her and she was trying to push the thoughts she knew she shouldn't be thinking out of her head, but she couldn't. She tried not to think about Riven, but trying not to think about someone meant you were thinking about them since you were trying not to. So, that was horribly ineffective. After hours of reading about survival spells and remedy potions that could be made out of gilly weed (1) and polyjuice, Musa shut her books and returned to the dorm for some much needed sleep and hopefully a dream about her boyfriend.

Stepping into the magical reality chamber the next day, Musa didn't feel ready at all. "Good morning class, I trust you are all full of energy and ready to take your exams,"

"I'm not feeling ready," Musa said to Flora nervously.

"I think I forgot what I studied," Flora replied back in the same nervous tone.

Luckily for Musa, she didn't have to go first, Bloom was chosen and since she did study the most, it was a good thing. The girls got to watch as she readied her ingredients for a potion until the witches attacked the chamber. Nobody knew how they infiltrated the chamber, but for a few minutes there was sheer panic as to if Bloom was going to make it out alive. She did and everything was okay in the end, but that meant the mid term was cancelled indefinitely, which was a major plus. (3)

* * *

Right after class, Bloom and Stella went back to their rooms while Techna and Flora worked on an assignment together, leaving Musa to go to dance practice and deal with Karen.

As if she hadn't had enough going wrong in her life, now she had to go be on a team with someone that she had just gotten in a fight with. Musa thought about skipping practice, but that would be rude and she wanted to try to be fiends with Karen, especially since they had a rocky past. Karen had left Devon after a minor scandal with Nate had blown up into a big social coup. And even though Karen insisted she was over it and never cared, Musa still felt bad about everything that happened, even though none of it was her fault. While Leslie and Karen still had their problems, Musa was trying to remain neutral and this little tiff they were in wasn't helping.

"Look at you," Karen pointed out rather nicely when Musa walked into dance a little late but it looked like she had missed the whole practice since nobody was left in the studio, she had seen Musa return that morning in Daniel's limo and since then got a little upset that she was wrong that she hadn't caught Musa doing something wrong. "You're glowing, it wouldn't happen to be because someone spent the night with -"

"Oh shut up," Musa joked. "Nothing happened and are we talking now?"

"Look, I'm sorry that I accused you of -," Karen began as she pulled the CD of their music for the dance routine out of the player and put it back in the case.

"It's fine," Musa said. "I know you were just looking out for my relationship with Daniel,"

"Yeah, but it looks like you don't need me to look out for it," Karen said. "Looks like I was wrong…"

"Yeah…" Musa said looking down at the ground recalling her conversation with Leslie. "I mean I would never cheat on Daniel,"

"Right I know and I'm sorry I accused you of it," Karen said repeating her apology for the millionth time. But, then by the look on Musa's face, it was as if Karen knew that this was the perfect opportunity to get some good information out of the princess. "Something you wanna share?"

"What?" Musa asked a little confused.

"You look upset, that's all,"

"Oh well - ," Musa began but stopped herself. She knew she could trust Leslie with her secrets because of their past and the fact that they had been friends forever. But, Karen was a different story, sure she was nice to her and Karen hadn't done anything to betray their friendship so far, but Musa still wasn't sure if she could trust her. When Leslie found out they were friends, she made it a point to warn Musa about trusting her. But, Musa figured that was just some residual hatred she had towards Karen from all the drama that went down.

"You can tell me," Karen said supportively in a 'big sister' tone. "Maybe I can help," she said leaning against the wall and then

Musa gave it a little more thought and realized that Karen was in a very similar situation when she moved to Magix to go to school here, so she probably would be of some help to her. "Have you ever had feelings for someone when you know you shouldn't?"

"Umm I think we both know that I have," Karen said recalling the event that caused the rift between the two clichés. She then pulled out her phone from her back pocket and laid it down on the floor next to her.

"It's just, I really like Daniel I do, but lately I've been having feelings for this other guy…" Musa said looking at the floor and then back up to Karen, who had almost a smirk on her face. Musa would have been suspicious and thought she had made a mistake by telling Karen, but then she understood the look.

"I knew it!" Karen exclaimed. "sorry, but I totally called that one. But as for this guy, do you think he's more suitable for you than Daniel?"

"I dunno, I just, I never felt that same way about Daniel that I do for him and it's killing me that I'm feeling this way," Musa began, she was about to keep talking when Karen ended the conversation quickly.

"Well the bell will be ringing any minute, we'll talk about this later,"

"Okay, and thanks," Musa said as she got up and walked out of the dance studio.

Little did Musa know that her private conversation she just had was not only with Karen. As Musa walked away Karen, whose phone was open the entire time, put her ear to the cell phone and spoke to an unknown receiver. "Sorry you had to hear that, but at least now you know, call me when you get this message. It looks like we have a lot to talk about."

* * *

_That little bitch! I wonder who was on the other end of that phone call – haha I think we all know! _

_1 Harry Potter reference, the two plots are very similar when you think about it_

_2 From the show 'what I like about you' when Val advises Holly to be truthful to her boyfriend when she is having feelings for someone else, unfortunately her boyfriend heard Val and then that opened a can of worms. _

_3. I found this episode incredibly boring, so I added this whole storyline to make it more interesting, plus it was sooo terribly Bloom based. _

_Next up – junior league_

_xoxo,_

_princessm_


	11. Junior League

_I know that it has been awhile since my last update…again. Sorry! But in my defense, I have been having a lot of fun lately and my fun took priority…sorry. But I managed to finish this chapter and hopefully I'll finish the next two before I leave for my trip to Italy. _

_So here's junior league – I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

**Junior League **

Something was different.

It was a relatively normal day when it came to classes and things like that, but Musa had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was as if she were sure something bad was going to happen. But, things seemed to be looking up for her, over the past week she had no problems in school and she and Daniel were just fine.

And yet she felt uneasy for some reason. It was as if she knew something bad was about to happen, but she was choosing to ignore it. It had been a week since she had last seen her boyfriend and things so far were pretty much good, she was trying her hardest to think less about Riven and she focused on the fact that she would get over him eventually and until then she was going to go on like nothing had changed from when she left home. Musa was actually really relieved when she and Daniel talked because it sounded like he was fine and completely secure with their relationship, which was a nice change from the way things were. Musa was beginning to open up a bit more to Karen, who actually had some good advice on pretty much anything she had a problem with.

Everything was pretty much going great, there were the witches to worry about, but they were the last thing on Musa's mind. But still, she couldn't shake the feeling of anxiety like something was coming. Maybe it was because everything was going right, that she felt like something had to go wrong. Like what Techna always said in these situations 'if everything is going right, you're overlooking something' it seemed a little pessimistic, but it seemed to be pretty true. But if you're not looking for something that might be wrong, then nothing will be. And that was Musa's approach on the situation.

And yet, she still felt uneasy.

"You okay?" Ali asked as she and Musa made their way back to their dorms right after dance practice. Ali was not only the only other freshman on the dance team, but her dorm was right next to Musa's so the two had become fast friends because of the amount of times a day they saw each other.

Musa nodded and stared forward and continued to walk. "You know that feeling you get when everything is going right and yet you feel like…I dunno really anxious?"

"Ugh, all the time," Ali said with an exasperated sigh. "But that's usually because I forgot about some killer math test or something. But when it happens I try to think of the positives. I'm young, beautiful and heir to a huge fortune," Ali finished as she did an excited twirl and then continued along in the orginal pace with Musa.

"Well, that doesn't exactly work for me," Musa said. She didn't think the number of times she told herself that she was a princess was going to help her feel less uneasy. Besides the whole idea of it sounded completely preposterous. Did Ali really tell herself that?

"It will help," Ali insisted. "Come on think about it. You're hot, a great dancer, a princess, you have a sexy boyfriend…"

At this point Musa tuned Ali out and continued on her way trying to figure out what it was that was bothering her. Finally, she got to her room and threw herself on her bed face down, taking comfort in the soft sheets. "Ugh," she said aloud to herself as she pulled herself up and leaned on her elbows with her face resting in her hands. She looked straight at her desk and knew that she should be doing something productive, but she would have rather taken a nap.

Musa then looked up and noticed that her roommate was nowhere in sight, which was odd since she and Techna had a class together in twenty minutes and Techna usually used the time right before a class to review notes and triple check her homework. Musa admired her roommate's commitment, but at the same time wished Techna would take it easy every now and again. But of coarse Techna was under a different type of pressure, Musa was hear to basically learn how to strengthen herself and then go onto college and learn how to rule a kingdom, Techna on the other hand was at Alfea on scholarship and a lot of her future depended on her grades here. It was a lot to think about but the pressure on Techna was very real. **(1) **

With that, Musa felt bad for putting on her studies on the back burner just because she could and she looked down to her bag and pulled out a textbook and began to read as she chewed on the top of her pen. That was when she heard Flora come into the room. The last thing Musa needed right now was a distraction since she was already super behind on her work, but she was always a procrastinator, so she welcomed Flora's visit. "Hey Musa, have you seen Techna?"

Musa looked up from her papers and saw Flora at the door. "Nah, she's been off the radar," she answered honestly wondering herself where her roommate was.

"I need to find a spell you unshrink couture,"

Musa noticed the worry in Flora's voice and knew that Stella must have said something to Flora since Flora was the type of person to feel really bad if someone was even the slightest bit angry with her. "Doesn't nocturnal ivy do something like that?" Musa said recalling what she had learned from

"Oh yeah, I could combine it with some sparking palmseed oil," Flora said as she opened Techna's wardrobe for whatever reason and hear a muffled mumbling. Musa looked up when her ultra sensitive ears picked up on the mumbling and saw her missing roommate tied up by vines that were wrapped around her entire body.

"Techna!" Flora exclaimed with surprise. Musa got up from her bed and quickly walked over to help free her roommate, who by the looks of it was ready to throttle Flora. Of coarse, if it were her stuck in a closet being suffocated by a bunch of plants, she probably wouldn't bee too happy with Flora either. But Musa took her seat back on the bed when Bloom and Stella came into the room to help out Techna, probably after hearing Flora's surprised scream.

"All I wanted was a jacket and got kidnapped by this psycho plant," Techna complained as she climbed out of the vines that had bound her before. Musa had been dealing with all of Flora's experiments for the last week and trying to keep a level head about it all. She knew Flora meant well, but after finding a vine growing in her clarinet and seeing that another plant had broken several guitar stings, the little patience she was given in life, was wearing thin.

"You see what Flora is doing to our living conditions?" Stella complained. Musa hated agreeing with Stella, but she was right, the last thing Musa wanted was to wake up to a plant slowly making roots all over her bed.

"Yeah Flo, that stuff is not cool, not cool at all," Musa said in agreement.

"This plant nonsense has gone too far," Stella said after Flora had informed an angry Techna that she was probably not going to be able to recovery the notebooks that she had lost to some hungry plants. Judging by her roommates' reaction to the whole situation, Musa could tell that Flora was not going to get off easy for this disturbance. "this is a dormitory, not a rainforest,"

"I understand, I'll move out till black Mud Swamp and I wont come back until I finish my potion," Flora said sounding a little like she was wallowing in self pity as she walked over to the door.

"You'll move out?" Bloom said stupefied that she was taking such a dramatic approach.

"Yeah I'm really sorry about the trouble I caused," Flora said as she hung her head shamefully.

"You can't move to Black Mud Swamp, there are keek bugs and not to mention sludge slugs," Bloom said trying to make Flora stay and then turned to her other roommates and addressed them directly. "She should stay, right? Tell her to stay," Bloom finally commanded. But the girls fell silent and Flora had already walked out of the dorm before they had a moment to think about the question at hand.

"Unbelievable, you call yourselves her friends and you let her leave like that," Bloom yelled.

"Get off your high horse," Musa said sitting up in her bed. "you are just as annoyed with this whole thing as we are, you're just not bold enough to speak up," Musa said, she didn't really care if people called her names, but she was a good friend and she cared for Flora, but Flora was being a bit ridiculous right now. Just because they were in a disagreement she up and left, it was obvious that she was feeling sorry for herself and Musa hated pitying people since most of the time, it was the last thing they needed. "She's just being overdramatic right now,"

"That's not like Flora," Bloom demanded. "She's upset,"

"All the more reason to storm out and try to guilt us into feel bad, trust me I did it with my parents all the time," Stella said forming an alliance with Musa.

"Flora is out friend you guys, so she made a couple of mistakes, doesn't mean she has to go live in a swamp," Bloom said still not budging from the high horse she was on. She then stormed out of the room and back into hers.

"Okay, I understand where she is coming from, but …" Techna began when Bloom left the room and left Stella, Musa and herself looking at each other.

"We're not bad friends," Musa said stubbornly as she crossed her arms. "I mean we didn't boot her out the door,"

"Exactly, she is just doing this for attention," Stella began defensively. "I mean I know it's not like her to do that, but come on she's a girl and us girls have the gift of guilt trips.  
I mean come on, you can't believe that she really thinks gong out to the swamp will make things better, she's trying to make a statement."

"But," Musa began starting to feel bad about not stopping Flora. It was kinda obvious that Flora was trying to make the feel bad on some level, but Musa didn't want her friend out there alone, she could really get hurt and all she really was trying to do was help. "she might need out help, maybe we should go out there, I mean what if we finish this potion quicker, the quicker out lives can go back to normal."

"That's all I'm saying," Bloom said as she walked back into the room with hiking boots for everyone. "Let' go help her out,"

"Sounds like a plan," Techna said as she walked over to her bed and picked up her mini laptop. "I guess it's only logical since we can't keep living with all this freakish vegetation in our dorm,"

"And Flo cat just live out in Black Mud Swamp all alone," Musa added.

"Well you girls have fun, I'll stay here in civilization until you get back," Stella said as she plopped down on Musa's bed and pulled out her nail file. It was obvious that it would take some convincing to get her there, luckily guilt trips worked both ways.

"Come on Stel, Flora forgave you when you totally trashed our room," Bloom said. "And now all she is trying to do is help us so we never have to deal with the witches again, so come on,"

"Hey, I was under a spell," Stella said in defense. "What happens when you are under a spell is not your fault,"

"You're going," Musa said throwing the pair of boots that Bloom had brought in at Stella.

"I AM NOT WEARING THESE HIDEOUS BOOTS!" Stella yelled as she caught the boots and threw them to the ground just as Musa, Techna and Bloom walked.

* * *

"Thank you so much for coming, only true friends would follow me into this swamp," Flora said to her roommates as they all set up camp along side the swamp. It had taken a lot to get Stella to come here, which included Musa reluctantly agreeing to by a frilly pink skirt that matched one that matched Stella's and agreeing to wear it at an event that involved all of Alfea and Red Fountain. Musa would have found this unfair but Techna agreed to tutor Stella in Calculus and Bloom agreed to try on Stella's clothes for Stella so that Stella could judge weather they would fit right on her.

"Hey wouldn't miss it for anything," Stella said as she looked down at her shoes as she stepped into mud puddle.

"Yeah Flo, we're your friends, for better or for worse," Musa said as she took a seat on a rock and rested for a second. It had taken almost an hour to find Flora in the swamp. As Musa looked around she remembered back to the last time she was here. IT was when she had first met Riven, well officially anyway. When Musa used to think back to that day, she felt excitement, but now all she felt was stupidity for being so naive about everything. Especially because she spent that time seriously thinking about ending things with Daniel, luckily for her Riven had shown his true colors before she did something stupid.

"Oh wonderful, I'll need you're help to find one main ingredient," Flora informed as she opened up a book and flipped though the pages. Musa sat up attentively and paid close attention, the quicker she got out of this swamp, the better, there were bugs, slime and annoying old feelings that kept popping up. She was gonna be so happy when this was over. "Its not going to be easy, here it is, the cheerful gladiolus."

"If that's it, couldn't you have had it delivered," Stella asked oblivious to the fact that if it were that easy Flora probably would have done it already. "It's a flower,"

"Actually there is only one left in the world, the BMJL has it," Flora said and Musa could only guess that Flora had read the confused looks on their faces when she said the acronym so she continued on. "It's the Black Mud Junior League, they do volunteer work around here," She said happily as she closed the book and held it close to her as if it were very special.

"Oh so it's like the Solarian Junior league, I got the cutest shoes at their silent auction," Stella said.

"Don't most junior leagues host have debutant balls?" Techna asked as she thought of those particular charitable groups.

"Yeah," Musa and Stella said at the same time. Except while Stella said it with much enthusiasm, Musa was hardly excited a the memory of her debutant ball. "They are probably the most boring thing in the world you can be subjected to and the whole idea is to let the 'right people' now you're single and available. It is just a ploy by a bunch of old rich people to marry their daughters off into the perfect family," Musa continued.

"You know, for a girl who hates the idea so much, it seemed to have worked on you," Stella pointed out to Musa.

"Excuse me?" Musa said taken aback by the statement.

"Well, let's see I can only guess Daniel accompanied you to this event since you said he always ended up being your date to royal affairs," Stella said as she began connecting some dots and gaining insight into Musa's past as they trudged along through the swamp. "And now you're dating Daniel, a prince who just happens to be the 1st in line for the throne of a planet that just happens to be the greatest ally to your planet," When Musa heard it said to her she couldn't help but feel at awe by Stella's logic. Musa hated the idea of her life being lived for her and her decisions being made for her, but now it seemed almost like her family had tricked her into a relationship with Daniel without her even knowing it. "Coincidence, I think not,"

"Yeah, that's definitely not what happened," Musa said dismissing the thought or trying to. She had always kinda had a feelings of obligation when it came to Daniel, but was her family so set on uniting two families that they would have planned hers and Daniel's relationship from birth? No, it was too deceitful and how could they have even known things would turn out this way? Musa tried to let the thought pass, but a part of her couldn't let it go.

"Well, this junior league is run by the undines, little water nymphs, they've ruled the swamp for centuries," Flora said looking at her book once again as she changed the subject back to the task at hand.

"Reality check Flora, you're going to ask them for the last cheerful gladiolus, why would they ever give it to you?" Stella reasoned, getting something for nothing ever happened.

"I don't expect them to, that's why I developed a potion especially for this, all I need is to borrow the flower and use a drop of my invention," Flora said as she presented the girls with a bottle that had a light pink liquid inside. She then dropped a drop of the pink substance onto a leaf and in seconds the drop created an identical plant right next to the original. "I call it the vegal cloner, this way the flower won't be endangered anymore,"

"Okay so let's get a move on it," Bloom said as Flora put the potion back safely into her backpack. "We should get that flower as soon as possible, god only knows how long it will be until Stella starts to whine and complain,"

"You mean she hasn't started already," Musa asked drolly as she quickly dusted the dirt off of her jeans and began on her way as she listened to the low irritated mumblings of Stella, who was whining about the fact that she was a princess and that she shouldn't be subjected to a swamp. Musa had learned to just let these things go since Stella's little 'princess fits' as she began to call them were pretty common.

The girls began to make their way through the familiar swamp that seemed to be under constant change. One thing that Musa managed to noticed while they were walking by was the cove that was full of the quietus carnivourous, which then caused her in turn t think again about that day I this very place where they had their run in with the troll.

"Can we take a break!" Stella whined after about an hour of hiking around the swamp. The heat seemed to be even more intense in the swamp, which explained why there was such a dense overgrowth of plants and why the girls were getting fatigued of quickly.

"I'm with Stella on this one," Musa said as she wiped her forehead with her hand and leaned against a tree. "It's really hot, not to mention we still have a lot of swamp to cover, there's no point in going on if one of us is going to keel over from a heat stoke,"

"I agree," Techna said stopping in her place and sitting down on a rock and enjoying the cool shade that the tree behind it provided.

The girls decided that it would probably be best to take a break since they had been in the swamp for a while now. Musa sat down at the base of a tree beside Bloom and leaned her head back against the tree and tried to shake the bad feeling that was still looming over her. It was lie every time her mind was off of it, she would remind herself of all the confusion and chaos in her mind and then that feeling would come back.

"Let's play a game, we're sitting here why not have some fun while we're at it," Stella said as she sat on a large rock and kicked her feet up and laid back as she basked in the sun. "Everyone has to share a secret, that way we can get to know each other better,"

"That sounds like a very bad idea," Musa said as she sat at the base of a tree. These kinds of games never ended well. It usually led to some type of horrible secret being let out and that would cause a massive eruption of hate and anger that sometimes ended with a sever cat fight. "and the only person that would have fun with that game is you, besides we all know each other pretty well so I think we're good,"

"Yeah, why can't we just sit here and relax," Bloom said as she leaned up against a tree. "Besides that's not a game,"

"It is to a game,"

"Not even a little," Musa stated as she let out a deep breathe and thought about it, since Stella brought t up earlier, it was all she could think about. She had been debating whether it mattered if someone else had a hand in getting her and Daniel together, but all that she could settle on was that this was not making her mixed feelings become anymore clear. "What you wanna do is called being nosy,"

"Fine," Stella said obstinately and crossed her arms and pouted. "So what? Are we just going to sit here? Can we at least talk about something interesting," Stella complained further and was finally silenced when Musa randomly spoke up.

"Do you guys really think that Daniel and I were picked for each other," Musa said allowed as she looked toward the sky not realizing the surprised look on her friends faces, they were not used to Musa opening up that quickly with such little help. Usually someone had to broach the subject to get Musa to open up, but now Musa was just too preoccupied with everything that she really needed someone to put her mind at ease. Besides, what Stella had said earlier was really getting to her. "It's conceivable that our relationship is pretty convenient but, I mean do you think that all this time my family was scheming about this,"

"I wouldn't call it scheming," Bloom said as she thought about the situation and saw how much her family's interference bothered her, even if it was for the best. "I mean they want what's best for you and you two do seem to be really do together. I mean I guess it is a little odd if they set things up, but does that take away from what you guys have?"

"Besides who cares if they did or didn't," Stella pointed out. "If you're happy it should hardly matter how you got together in the first place." Stella finished eloquently, much to the surprise of everyone around her.

"I forget how smart you can be," Musa said as she smiled and looked towards Stella.

"I'm taking that as a compliment," Stella affirmed and then looked back at the group with a determined face. "Now back to my game,"

"How about we get back to looking for the flower and the junior league instead," Techna said not wanting to play Stella's game either. "It is why we're here,"

After getting back too looking for the junior league in the swamp, it looked like they were making some headway since they had managed to see, according to Flora, some of the houses that the undines lived in." I cannot wait until we find those nymphs and get back to civilization," Stella complained as the girls continued to search around the swamp.

"Chill out Stella," Musa scolded as she turned around and saw Stella standing precariously on top of a rock that rested in the mud. Although Musa wanted Stella to stop complaining, she would endure a day more of it if she could see Stella fall ass first in the mud. Musa then continued to look through the vegetation in the swamp when she heard a shrill scream that she knew belonged to Stella after hearing it so many times and then as if the universe had heard what Musa had secretly wished for, she turned around to see Stella sitting in the mud with her clothes saturated in the slime.

"I'm a princess, I should not be subjected to swamps and slime," She screamed angrily as she threw her hands into the mud angrily. "Just find those stupid nymphs," Stella began angrily as she brushed herself off and ignored the many 'shh''s that Flora yelled to her and continued to rant. "You know what, I bet those stupid nymphs don't even exist."

"Stella SHH," Flora scolded as she ran up behind Stella and put her hand over her mouth to muffle one of Stella's insipid rants. "Look, its them," Flora said as she pointed over to the lake that passed though Black Mud Swamp. There Musa saw, for the first time, the junior league. And they were definitely junior; the undines were only about the size of the flowers that they were floating around. They reminded Musa like the small forest nymphs that would occasionally wander into one of the palace gardens, these nymphs however were a little different looking. While the ones around her palace had wings and looked more like miniature fairies, these undines looked like small mermaids.

"Well hello, welcome to the Black Mud Swamp Junior League," said one of the undines as it popped it's heard out of the water and sat on a lillipad that was floating on the water's edge. "I supposed you are here to purchase tickets for the literacy benefit for butterflies tea parties, there aren't any left, but I suppose we can put your names on a waiting list, follow us," Said another undine as she popped out of the water. The girls began to follow the two undines when Musa felt her phone go off for the fifth time that day, she had been ignoring the phone calls all day so that she could find the junior league, but after five calls from Annabelle, Musa was getting the impression that something was wrong.

"Hey guys I will catch up in a second," Musa said as her friends walked over and followed the water nymphs, she walked over to a tree and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Hey Musa," Annabelle began nervously. "I – I, okay I have this problem and I need your advice on something. And you need to be honest okay?"

"Okay Anna, but what is it?" Musa said picking up on the worried tone in Annabelle's voice. "Please tell me there aren't any members of the secret service involved again,"

"No," Annabelle said with a laugh. "Not that. It's this problem…. Okay what would you do if you thought you knew something about a friend that you knew would hurt them and someone else if you told them but by not telling them you would hurt them also, if you hadn't already hurt them before."

"Uhhh….what?"

"I dunno what to do because it's one of those damned if you do and damned if you don't situations and now I need to figure out what to do!"

"Alright well explain again, this time slower and maybe tell me the whole story,"

"Okay," Annabelle said taking a deep breathe. "I think I saw…. Okay well I saw…Justin. Yeah I saw Justin cheating on Penelope and I have no idea what to do,"

"Oh, I didn't even know they were back together," Musa said not sure on how to answer. "Well are you sure you saw him cheating? Maybe it was something else… and why are you asking me? Leslie is so much better with this kind of stuff,"

"Oh, well Leslie is really busy and I needed to talk to someone," Annabelle said still very nervously. "But, I'm pretty sure I saw someone that was not Penelope leaving his dorm yesterday very early in the morning,"

"Anna, that could mean anything you can't base a whole argument on what could have happened the night before. They could have been studying -,"

"I know what you're going to say, but she is one of those girls. Trying to climb the social ladder and sleeping with D-," Annabelle stopped and luckily for her Musa didn't pick up on her little faux pas. "And sleeping with Justin is her way in, or so she thinks, not to mention he and Penelope are always so on and off,"

"Well I wouldn't tell Penelope until I was sure," Musa advised. There was no telling the amount of problems that would erupt if there was a false rumor like that being spread around. "And if you are sure, you should tell Penelope."

"But, I can't just tattle on Justin. We're friends and what if this ruins that?" Annabelle complained. "I mean I can't just do that to him, I think he loves Penelope,"

"Well if he loved her, he wouldn't have cheated," Musa spat out. "Besides he and Penelope have always been so on and off. I figure telling her this will be telling her something she probably already knows. But, I think you should tell her if you're sure,"

"But they've changed," Annabelle said stubbornly. "They have been getting close and I think that they are serious now, something like this could ruin them. Not to mention what it will do to everyone else, this could tear us apart,"

"You need to stop over thinking everything okay?" Musa said as calmly as she could. She had really thought that when she left Devon that she left all this drama behind, but that wasn't case. But, she refused to let her friends go through this kind of crap alone. "If they really want to be together then they wouldn't be doing crap like this and as for them getting close, maybe this is for the best. Tell her if you're positive and if not then give Justin the benefit of the doubt. And our group has weathered worse storms, I'm sure nothing that bad will happen,"

"I hope you're right,"

"Oh stop being so dramatic," Musa said wondering why Annabelle was so torn about this. It wasn't like she and Penelope were best friends or anything, but Anna was the kind of person to feel bad if someone else felt bad. "Everything will be fine; we can straighten this all out when I get home in a couple weeks, if it hasn't worked itself out by then,"

"Okay thanks M," Annabelle said and then hung up the phone. And Musa walked back over to where all the girls were crowed around the lake and a small throne where they were talking to, who Musa could only guess was, the queen of the water nymphs.

"We're here to borrow your cheerful gladiolus," Flora said

"A big request, may I ask why you need the last flower," asked the queen. And then Flora proceeded to tell the queen of the undines that she needed to make a potion to try to ward away the witches that were on a major power trip. And when Flora was finished explaining why she needed the flower, the queen offered a type of exchange. It turned out that the island, the one place in the swamp where the water nymphs got their food, zillith, and the one place where it grew was being plagued by a type of monster and all their attempts to stop this beast were futile.

The queen told them that the conditions had gotten so bad that it was conceivable that many of the undines wouldn't be making it through the night or past the week. That was all the convincing all the girls needed because without the undines even asking, they transformed quickly and flew off in the direction of the island hoping to get to the bottom of the whole situation. The girls were told that there was a monster in the water and that it was stopping them from being able to go to the island.

"Okay so you know how this monster is way enormous, well the undines are teeny so maybe we could be able to take this thing down easy," Stella said trying to ease the tension that everyone was under. Then, Musa and the rest of the girls turned to her and looked at her with shock. Although Stella didn't know it, the reason that everyone was looking at her with the same scared looks on their faces was because the monster that they were looking for was right behind them. "What, you don't think I'm right,"

"Oh my god!" Musa yelled as the monster jumped out of the water and began to attack them. They tried to group together and use a spell together, but the monster dove into the murky water and became invisible to their eyes as they peered into the water. Musa and the rest of the girls flew back until they were all back to back and for a few seconds Musa felt a lot safer knowing her friends had her back, literally.

Suddenly, breaking the silence that had fallen over the swamp as they waited for the monster to strike, the monster shot up into the air and stuck Musa and split up the girls from the circle and the last thing Musa could remember was falling into the water before she went unconscious.

* * *

When Musa came to, she was on the shore of the island that the nymphs got their food from. As she took in a deep breathe she began to feel a bit light headed, but she ignored the feeling, passing it off as some residual effects of being knocked out by the monster. She stood up and rubbed her head and then looked around at the island and noticed a weird pink haze in the air. "Okay let's find the zillith," Flora said as she looked around the island. The zillith was the food that the undines ate and the girls looked around for the plants that grew them, but so far there was no luck.

"A systematic search is in order," Techna said looking around the quiet island. Musa straightened out her outfit as she tried to get a good footing on the ground, but it was like with every second she was standing on the island, she felt even more tired. Maybe it was because of the fact that she had just regained consciousness, but as she observed some of her other friends, Musa noticed that she was not the only one who was feeling a bit off.

"Hey Flora do you know what kind of tree this is," Bloom said through a yawn as they began to move more inland on the island. The zillith grew on a special type of tree and so far they had yet to spot that specific tree. As Musa looked around she could feel her eyelids begin to get heavy and she couldn't stifle the yawns that occurred every couple of seconds. "Wow…I am so seriously tired, I guess it must be from all that swimming we did earlier." Bloom said through another yawn.

"They smell really nice, like designer perfume," Stella said and Musa turned around to see all of her friends were beginning to look like they were about to fall asleep any second. The weird thing was, for the first time in awhile, Musa had actually been sufficient sleep. There was something going on here, and Musa would have pondered it further but the overwhelming pull of sleep was beginning to take it's affect on her. "I could totally go for a power nap right about now,"

"It's awfully quiet around here, don't you think," Techna said addressing the girls.

"There are no birds," Stella said as she began to fall deeper into fatigue. "I so miss my duvet right now,"

"That's right, there are no birds," Techna began as she summoned some of her powers. "I am going to analyze the air composition," By now Musa had already fallen to the ground and found a nice soft spot on the ground and took another yawn in before closing her eyes and surrendering to the pull of sleep. Right before she fell asleep, Musa could faintly hear Techna give a panicked command. "Girls stop breathing, there is narcoleps spray in the air," she yelled, but it was too late, Musa and Stella were already into Stage 2 **(2)** sleep while Flora was getting there. **(3)**

"Good morning, I could go for some pancakes" Musa said a few minutes later after she woke up on the island feeling like she had jus slept for hours, except judging by the surroundings, she came to the conclusion that it was probably a spell or something that they had fallen under. _Narcoleps Gas_ was all Musa could recall from before she fell asleep. _Well that explains the oxygen bubble that we're in_ Musa thought as she looked at the barrier that Techna had erected.

"Let's call room service," Stella said as she woke up and stretched out her arms. "I kinda want the continental breakfast," Stella remained in a sleepy state for a few more seconds until she observed a small lady bug crawling up the side of her arm and began freaking out thinking it was a zit bug.

"Should we tell her that it's a normal lady bug," Flora asked Musa as they both watched Stella run around the island frantically trying to get the bug, that had probably flown away the second she first screamed and began running around, off of her arm.

"Maybe later," Musa said as she and Flora turned back to Bloom and Techna.

"We need to make a barrier to cover the whole island," Bloom said.

"Let's power converge," Musa sad offering a way to accomplish the problem at hand. Just as Stella rejoined the group after her mild freak out over the bug that she probably killed with her shrill shrieks.

"Alright then," Techna said as the girls huddled together and got ready to power up. "Everybody ready?" With that the girls nodded and put their hand up in the air and concentrated their power to make the oxygen barrier stretch over the entire island.

"Hey go check on the undine, we'll keep the barrier up," Musa said to Bloom as she and the rest of the girls tried to make the barrier last longer without constant magic being pushed into it to keep it from falling, while Bloom went over to the water nymph to check if she was okay.

Just when they were finally able to keep the barrier up they went up to the undine and found out that she had gone out to find food, but only found one zillius leaf. Just as she explained Musa and the rest of the Winx Club, they felt the ground quake with great force almost knocking them off of their feet. "The monster is coming!" Musa said hearing the sound waves and realized that they were in very close to the island, very close.

"Actually my dear, the monster is already here," The water nymph corrected. "We're standing on it," Seeing the confused looks on their faces, the water nymph continued. "This island isn't an island at all, it is actually the shell of a giant turtle that lives in the swamp. And the poor turtle is not evil, she's just under the willow's spell,"

"But why would a tree want to put a spell on a turtle," Asked Musa trying to connect the dots, but failed when she tried to think of a motive for a tree to want to spell a turtle. "Aren't tree's supposed to be peaceful,"

"This type of tree is different, it's a Windiago Willow," explained the undine. "It's a type of parasite that is feeding off the turtle, and if it doesn't stop soon, everything on this island...or turtle shell will parish. Along with our only food source,"

"We can take care of that," Techna said offering some help to the poor undine. "I mean how hard could a tree be to defeat?" And then, almost as if answering her question, the tree came to life and began to attack the Winx Club.

The only way that they could think of to get rid of the tree was to burn it, but when Bloom went into the tree's air zone and fired a flame attack at it, the attack didn't seem to phase him. "It's fireproof," Flora said and then thought up a way to make it's roots susceptible to fire and finally brought the tree down.

* * *

Afterwards, the girls were presented with the cheerful gladiolus and Flora used her cloning potion to create enough food for the nymphs to live on. Flora also told the girls that she planned on using her cloning potion to clone the cheerful gladiolus as well. And with that, the girls left Black Mud Swamp with their friendship in tact.

"See Stella, plants can come in pretty useful when you think about it," Flora said as she used one of her potions that she had made to remove a stain from Stella's shirt, that she got after dinner. Techna and Bloom had gone out the library to study for a test they had the next day leaving Stella, Flora and Musa in the dorm to chat.

"Yeah yeah, I guess you're right," Stella said as she plopped down on the couch next to Musa, who was tuning her guitar and working on a melody she had thought of while she was in the swamp. "So Musa, what's been bugging you,"

"Me?" Musa questioned as she looked up at Stella's inquiring face and then noticed that Flora looked like she wanted to know as well, not that Flora would ever be so prying. "I'm fine, there's nothing wrong…"

"Oh, really?" Stella said sarcastically. "Then why have you been so jumpy when anyone mentions Daniel?"

"I'm not!"

"Are so! Flora you agree with me, right?" Stella asked but saw Flora packing her things and walking into her room, as to avoid the question and the possible fight that might come from it. "That means she agrees,"

"It's not about him," Musa insisted. "it's just this weirdness between us, I dunno why,"

"Hmm, maybe it's cause you haven't seen him in awhile," Stella pondered. "I mean you two were simply adorable when he came here to visit you. And he's the sweetest thing, not to mention you seem to be really happy after you guys talk on the phone. I'm sure this will pass,"

"I guess," Musa said with a shrug and continued to tune her guitar. "Oh, that's Daniel," Musa said a she looked at her phone and stood up. "I should get this,"

"Say hello for me," Stella said as she walked into her room.

Musa then walked into her room was lying on her bed laughing on the phone as she joked around with Daniel. "Hey Musa?" Daniel asked his voice transitioning from a laugh to a more serious tone.

"Yeah?" Musa answered not sure why he had gotten to serious all of a sudden.

"When you said 'I love you' did you mean it?" Daniel asked almost afraid of hearing the answer. He knew he would miss Musa when she went to Magix, but he really didn't think he would lose her. But, with recent revelation he had yet to tell her about, he had begun to think, if Musa wasn't interested in the relationship anymore, why should he be? "I mean did you only say it because I –,"

"I love you Daniel," Musa said knowing she didn't mean it in the way Daniel was mentioning. She loved him, there was no doubt in her mind about that, but she still couldn't see herself as 'in love' with him. But she figured she _could_ love him, he was perfect for her so why wouldn't she fall in love. Maybe all she needed was time. And for a second, Musa thought that maybe this is what was bothering her all day. Maybe she wanted to make sure Daniel believed her, even if she was lying. "I love you," she repeated feeling the guilt rise up inside of her again. But this time she had convinced herself she would fall in love with him eventually and then everything would be perfect.

Musa heard a relived sigh on the other end of the phone. "Okay, I just wanted to make sure you weren't saying it cause I did. I mean if there is something you want to tell me, ever, you know you can right?"

"I know," Musa affirmed getting a shadow of suspicion that Daniel might have picked up on her hesitance. "But you're okay right? I mean you sound, I dunno different,"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Daniel answered. Musa thought she heard something different in his tone and she knew she was right. Daniel had just lied, something was wrong and she didn't know whether it had anything to do with what Annabelle called about earlier or not. Were they somehow involved in what was going on between Penelope and Justin? Whatever it was, it was not helping her at all either and the fact that they were both not being completely honest with each other was starting to put Musa on edge again.

"Promise" Daniel affirmed when there was an awkward pause between them. With that out of the way, the two picked up on their normal conversation, even though it was obvious there were things that they were keeping from each other that neither of them wanted to bring up. Maybe it was the feeling of obligation that Musa had towards her family that made her try so hard to feel something for Daniel or maybe she really did love him but lost her way a little when she met Riven. Whatever it was Musa was still as confused about what was going on with her relationship as she had ever been. They continued until late that night and Musa ended up falling asleep to Daniel's voice.

Hopefully that would keep the dreams she knew she shouldn't be having at bay.

* * *

_1. Okay so if all these princesses are going to Alfea, then it must be a great school, which usually means a steep tuition. So, this makes me wonder…how can normal people afford this? So that is why Techna is here on scholarship, I figure it adds and aire of normalcy in this 'perfect' world. _

_2. Stage 2 sleep is when you just begin to fall asleep and is usually when you are still a little aware of what is going on around you, characterized by sleep spindles which indicate you are falling asleep. _

_3. if you watch this episode, the girls don't seem sleepy, they seem like they are drunk….just an observation. _

_Miss Magix is up next – _

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	12. Miss Magix

_Updated like three weeks ago! Wow didn't realize how much I've been neglecting this story! Truth be told, I knew I was doing it, but it is the call of summer! And I had to answer it, I mean who is going to give up a trip to East Hampton? I was hoping to finish this story before I move out to go to college because I know I'll get super busy after that so I'm gonna try to do like a chapter a week….key word here being 'try'. Okay so I'm back and ready to write!_

_So I was about half way though 'meant to be' when I realized that I had yet to start this chapter. And while on the subject, this is not exactly my favorite chapter because I had a lot more fun writing the other one and this one seems to pale in comparison. It's just that nothing really happens around this time in my 'plot outline' I mean there is some serious drama to come (hint hint) but for now I need some peace. (think of it as the calm before the storm). Anywho…this is when Stella competes in the Miss Magix pageant and basically all you get is a little insight into things to come and it will make a lot more sense when you read the next chapter (that is nearly done). I never really like the episode that much either when I think about it. I mean this is a kids show and the only reason that Lucy won was because she was dressed like someone else and the second they found out that she wasn't that girl, they took away her prize. What type of message are they trying to deliver to little girls? I mean I am all for being pretty and stuff, but come on. Don't tell seven year olds that they can only win something if they're pretty. _

_With that said (ranting and all), I __do__ like this chapter, but it is a lot of filler conversation and stuff like that, but read it! For two reason, I wrote it and you'll make me happy! And because you'll be able to go 'Ah Ha!' next chapter when you put some of the pieces together. _

_So without further adew…_

* * *

**Miss Magix**

"You know," Musa said as she sat down on the couch in the common room. "That test was not as hard as everyone played it up to be,"' She said to Techna and Flora after they finally got back to their room after a long testing session for magical defense class. The test had actually been exactly what she had studied for and everyone had passed it, except for Stella, who hadn't shown up for the crucial exam.

"Yeah," Techna agreed. "I'm glad I didn't waste time dilly dallying, I remembered everything I studied,"

"Hey don't diss procrastinating," Musa said as she kicked her feet up. "I've made it of life," Instead of lecturing her with the long winded rant about how procrastination is never good, like Musa was expecting, Techna rolled her eyes as Bloom walked in the door with a worried look painted all over her face.

"Hey guys guess where I just was?" Bloom asked as she walked into the room and straight over to the girls. After a second of silence, she figured out that nobody was going to answer, she continued. "The nurse's office turns out that Stella was never there. She totally lied to us,"

"Maybe she went shopping or something," Musa said casually. It was hardly out of the ordinary for Stella to skip class in order to satisfy her shopping needs. She had just figured that Stella was buying clothes in order to escape taking the mid term.

"She's gotta be hiding out," Bloom said trying to come to some conclusion as to why Stella had lied to them and skipped a very important exam. "Avoiding the exam, right?"

"Well we should tell her it wasn't that difficult," Flora offered. She and the rest of the girls had done pretty well on the exam and it was clear that they were all pretty relived that the test was over with. "I did pretty well,"

"You studied," Musa pointed out. Even though Musa had procrastinated a lot, she had managed to get herself to the library and cram for a long time the night before. "Stella hasn't,"

"Well then she should be hiding out," Techna pointed out. "Because the magical reality test requires real skills,"

"So true," Bloom agreed as she began to make her way to Stella's room. "You know what, she needs a magical reality check, I'm not leaving her room until she's learned ever spell, potion and move out there,"

Just as Bloom marched into Stella's room in a determined stride, Musa looked up and noticed Stella walked into the common room with bags full of what Musa assumed was clothing. "Do you like this outfit?" Stella questioned as she did a spin to show off the new outfit she had just bought. "I mean does it work with these shoes?"

"You're in trouble," Musa said in a sing song tone as she flipped through a magazine. After that test in Magical Reality, Musa didn't have much to worry about studying for much since they would all be leaving on spring break in a week, so she had this week to kick up her feet and relax for a bit. As for Stella, it was as if she were determined on making everything harder for herself. "Where have you been missy,"

"I've been very busy, come on I'll explain," Stella said as she walked in the direction of her room and gestured for her friends to follow.

"There is no way a beauty pageant is more important than school," Musa and the rest of the girls had gathered in Stella's room and listened to Stella rant and rave about how excited she was about participating in the 'Miss Magix' beauty pageant. The entire idea of a beauty pageant was so ridiculous to Musa. Sure she didn't mind getting compliments from others, but basing an entire event solely on someone's looks was stupid, especially since when you talk to half of these girls, they were complete airheads. And yet, Stella wanted to put herself though that.

"I knew you would say that, that's why I didn't tell you guys," Stella complained and crossed her arms and sat on the side of the bed. "The pageant is also about poise, grace, personality and talent,"

"Why is this so important to you?" Flora ventured. It was a pageant and the concept of it seemed like something that Stella might be interested in. But still, it was not worth being kicked out of school.

"I was first runner up last year, this year the crown is meant to be mine, "Stella said with passion. While a part of Musa didn't know why anyone would want to participate in a pageant, the competitive part of her understood the need to win something that you hadn't yet accomplished.

"If you don't pass this class, they might kick you out," Flora warned reminding Stella of the consequences of her actions.

"Again," Musa added with a smirk, she knew how it pushed Stella's buttons when someone brought up how she was kicked out the year before and Musa got a bit of a kick out of it. It was harmless fun.

"Okay, I know I know," Stella said in an annoyed tone.

"We're only looking out for you Stella," Techna reminded. "You can't keep neglecting your studies or else Flora is right, you will be kicked out again. This is a serious matter,"

"Tech is right," Musa agreed as she stood up and walked over to Stella. "You have to study, this test is a huge deal and the longer you ditch, the more material you'll forget and the more you'll have to study. Not to mention you'll have the stress of this test hanging over your head until you finally take it,"

It took another ten minutes of lecturing Stella before it looked like it all stuck and she finally came to a compromise with the girls. After the pageant, she would spend every waking moment cramming for the test and the girls agreed to help her study and get ready for the pageant. And after another hour, Stella had finally made all of her choices on what she was going to wear during the pageant.

* * *

"Okay, I need to get my outfit just right, and we have to be super careful with my makeup," She said as she sat down in front of a vanity in one of the dressing rooms. The girls had just seen on of the other contestants in a panic because something had happened to her voice and Stella was not going to let that happen to her. She turned to Musa and continued. "Remember Musa, less is more,"

"Calm down Stella, I know how to put on makeup," Musa said trying to ease Stella's nerves. "You need to relax,"

"Well then, why don't you ever wear makeup?" Stella ventured, it was rare that Musa ever let on that she was an expert at coordinating outfits or applying makeup, since she had learned from the best, so Stella used the opportunity to gain some insight. "I mean you can apply it pretty well, hey you should entered the pageant! I mean your talent could be singing or dancing! I mean how much fun would that be?"

"Let me stop you right there," Musa said. "I don't do pageant, no offense and as for putting on makeup, "Well," Musa said as she applied eye shadow to Stella's upper eyelid. "I figure, you put on makeup when you want to impress someone or hide something on your face. I've got nothing to hide and who at Alfea am I going to impress?"

"Not Alfea," Stella said with a smirk. "I was thinking Red Fountain,"

Musa didn't answer since she knew what Stella was hinting at, Riven. But Musa refused to even acknowledge the fact that she had, and secretly still has, feelings for him since he decided that he would be better suited with the psychopathic trix sisters, and Darcy in particular. Instead of saying anything, Musa hit Stella on the back of the head, signaling her to back off the subject as she continued to work on her makeup. "Well, that hardly matteres since you are already the apple of someone's eye. I wish Sky could be here to see me," Stella said changing the subject as her eyes went starry at the idea of Sky being here for what she hoped would be her crowning moment.

"I called Brandon, but nobody picked up," Bloom said with obvious sadness, it was pretty clear that she had wished that he could have come there too. "I guess they're busy tonight,"

"Yeah, I think I heard Sky telling me about some exam they had battle techniques class," Stella said as she looked over her makeup and continued to eye her clothing, trying to figure out what she was going to wear. "Well, it doesn't matter," Stella said and then stood up with her makeup complexly done. She then walked over to her rack of clothing and pulled out her ball gown that she was going to wear when they announced all the girls and introduced them to the judges. She only had a few minutes before it was her cue to go on so she was less worried about the boys and more worried about winning, "I'm gonna get that crown and then Sky will not only be dating the Princess of Solaria, but also Miss Magix,"

Once at the pageant, the girls had decided to stand on the side of the stage while everyone performed. Besides, It was easier to calm Stella down in between acts since she was a nervous wreck about everything, even though she was really good at hiding it on stage.

"She's doing well," Bloom commented to Musa when she saw Stella's first talent, since all the girls were required to perform twice, but it was clear that something was bothering her.

"Yeah, she might just be the next Miss Magix," Musa said reluctantly. She really didn't think she would have too much fun tonight since she wasn't one for beauty pageant, but this was sort of fun, well watching it was fun. she could only imagine how embarrassed she would feel if she was prancing around on stage in those outfits. She had to give Stella props for having the confidence to do that. "So I guess Sky will be dating Princess of Solaria and Miss Magix…god help him,"

Bloom laughed and then looked back at the stage uncomfortably. "Hey Musa?" Bloom began in a serious voice.

"Yeah,"

"When you started dating Daniel, did it take awhile for him to open up?" Bloom questioned with a worried look. It was clear that Bloom wanted some insight ad to what might be going on in her relationship. "Like to you about stuff?"

"Well, not really," Musa said when after some that. "But that was probably because I've known him forever, so there wasn't much to open up about. Why, what's going on with Brandon?"

"I dunno, it's weird." Bloom began. "I mean we can talk about a bunch of stuff, like the other day everything was fine then when we started talking about my family, he got all uncomfortable. And he kept avoiding questions about his family,"

"Maybe there is something going on with his family," Musa offered. "He might not want to talk about and you two only met in the beginning of the year," Musa said thinking about the reasonability of her argument, she hardly liked talking about her family, aside from her father.

"Yeah, but then he got uncomfortable when I asked him where he grew up," Bloom asked then continued further. "I asked him what it was like to grow up around the palace and stuff and he just avoided all of the questioned I asked. It's like he's hiding something. I dunno maybe it's me or something…,"

"I dunno," Musa said honestly. "Lately I've been thinking the same thing, I mean it feels like Daniel is hiding something or that he's just holding something in,"

"Maybe it is just us…" Bloom said with an exasperated sign. "But, I thought everything has been good with you guys since you know – or well after you got over," Bloom stopped again, she obviously didn't want to bring Riven's name into the conversation, but Musa knew what she was talking about after her initial hesitation.

"Yeah, after that things were really good," Musa said thinking about how little they argued and she had even become good at pushing thoughts of Riven away, so she wasn't sure why she kept feeling like something was wrong. "Things are good, maybe it is just me,"

"Yeah, it might just be us trying to find a flaw when there is none," Bloom said trying to find a reason for their behavior.

"Hey, do you suspect a little foul play," Musa said changing the subject. Her eyes narrowed as she watched a girl land flat on her face after attempting some balancing move in her dance routine. That kind of stuff had been happening all night and she was thinking it was much more than an accident. The judges said no magic, but it wasn't like they were checking or anything, so it was safe to say that something was askew. "I mean, first the girl with the high pitched voice, but now all these girls are messing up their routines,"

"I think you might be onto something," Bloom said as she and Musa began to look for any suspicious figures. Just then the announcer came back on the microphone and announced the girl who had won. "Uh oh, Stella just lost," Bloom said to Musa, who quickly turned to see the girl from Popularis get a crown placed on her head and win the pageant.

"We're going to have a long night," Musa said cringing at the thought of the hours of whining she knew she would now have to endure since Stella had now lost the pageant…again. And by the look on Stella's face, it was clear that Stella was not going to take another lose very well.

"Wait just a second," Bloom said as she cast as spell. And revealed the truth behind what was going on.

* * *

"Wait till Sky finds out I'm Miss Magix!," Stella squealed happily as she continued to gallivant throughout her room. It was the day after the pageant and Stella managed to not only win, but she passed the test as well. Musa and the rest of the girls had decided to hang out in Stella's room after they got manicures and milkshakes. "And I also passed the exam with flying colors!"

"I hardly call three points above failing 'flying colors'," Techna pointed out and continued to type away on her computer. She was working on a paper that was going to be due a week after spring break, and while some might call it over obsessing; she called it being careful with her time.

"Well I passed," Stella said stubbornly as she continued to strut about her room with her new tiara. "And did you ever consider that you study too much? I mean come on spring break is in like three days! Loosen up Tech, and have some fun,"

"Actually we have a week and it wouldn't hurt you to get a head start on your assignments." Techna lectured. "Considering you just barely passed this class,"

"Well, maybe if you lightened up a bit then you could spend some more time figuring out Timmy instead of your calculus homework,"

"Well maybe if you spent more time on homework and less time with boys, then you wouldn't constantly be under the threat of getting kicked out again," Techna shot back.

That was when Musa, Bloom and Flora took the hint and left the room before things got catty. Although Techna was just looking out for Stella, and Stella was just trying to bring Techna and Timmy together, the two had unique ways of showing their concern, which usually left them bickering with each other.

Musa walked into her room after a night with very little sleep, since she and the rest of her friends were up all night trying to stuff a semester's worth of knowledge into Stella's head, luckily there was a lot of empty space in there. "Ahhh," Musa said as she laid down in her quiet room on her comfy bed. Just as she felt herself falling asleep, a shrill ring woke her up.

"Hello?" answered with an irritated voice.

"Well you have some explaining to do," Annabelle said from the other end of the phone.

"Excuse me?"

"Okay so you can tell Leslie that you liked some guy, but can't tell us!" Isabelle said when Musa realized that she was on speaker phone. She had told Leslie everything and she knew that if push came to shove the twins had the capability of getting any secret out of anyone. They should be working for the secret service instead of lounging around all day.

"Okay, I'll explain, just you have to promise not to tell anyone," Musa compromised. She knew she was not going to be able to get out of an explanation so she figured she would give them one, plus it was nice to be able to talk about this with someone since she refused to tell her friends here that there were still lingering feelings for Riven. It was just too embarrassing, she felt stupid for liking a guy that basically rejected in front of everyone and then humiliated her in public. That was why it was easier to explain it to her old friends, all they knew about that day was what Musa had told them. She said that she pissed off some witches and they decided to pay her back for it, she conveniently left out the part where Riven completely turned on her, again it was too embarrassing to talk about.

She wanted to be over Riven, she really wanted to be, but she just couldn't get over him. She didn't know why, but she was hell bent on ignoring it. Everything in her life was falling into place, there was no drama, no fights, nothing. She wanted more than anything, to keep it that way.

"Promise," They said in unison and then Musa began to explain the situation, hopefully for the last time. All she was looking forward to now was going home and seeing everyone and putting all the drama from the fall behind her, things were finally starting to become stable. She had great friends at home and great friends at Alfea, and then she had Daniel.

Things were finally okay, and Musa wasn't going to anything to mess that up.

* * *

_Well, that's about it. I never really like this episode (see rant in the beginning of the chapter), but this needed to be done, so there it is. _

_What I'm most excited about is my next chapter! It is when they go on spring break, so this is one of the few episodes that I have to really do whatever I want!! Yay! So expect the next chapter up soon, because I am finishing it up as you read this. _

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	13. Meant to Be

_Okay this episode was all about how Bloom discovered she was adopted, so that leaves Musa free during spring break. What happened during her break? I guess you'll have to read and see. _

**Meant to Be**

"It's a pity your father couldn't be here, but he's a busy man so who can blame him," Musa's aunt Galina said as she cut into the food on her plate and ate it as if she were scared to put more in her mouth. She then looked up at Musa, who was hardly following the rules of proper etiquette, which she had done on purpose to piss off her aunt and it looked like it was working. "Remember darling, chew like you have a secret,"

"Where are my manners," Musa asked sarcastically as she loudly clapped her table napkin in the air and than placed it on her lap. "I was eating like a commoner,"

"You joke, but you kids don't even realize how important things like this are,"

"Well, if I'm at an important gathering with important people, I'll be sure to be Miss Manners," A clear stab at her aunt, but like a lady, her aunt Galiena let it go. Musa loved her father, but the rest of her family was an enormous pain, that was probably why she had gotten so close to her friends, they were the family she would have chosen if she could choose, plus they all went through similar issues. Her aunt Galiena was the type of woman to force you to take etiquettes lessons for years no matter how much you begged to be good. Aunt Galiena was like 90 percent of all royal old people, stuck in her ways and completely out of touch with reality.

"You can't ruin my mood," Galiena pointed out happily. "I have some news for you, the Crescendian Royal Family wants to throw a grand gala in the summer and they want it to be hosted by you and Daniel. How splendid does that sound?"

"Splendid!" Musa said as she cut into her food and rolled her eyes. Since she could remember, she and Daniel were being pushed together and for awhile their families gave up when it looked like they were purely friends, they figured a friendship was good enough to keep the alliance alive, but after they began dating everyone went into a frenzy and began planning their wedding.

"I know isn't it. I can just imagine you two standing on the balcony of the Crescendian palace watching as your guests arrive," Galiena said happily. "And more good news! I am the head chair on the hospital board and there is a gala and it would be so perfect for you and Daniel to attend, it's in Magix and I know you won't have school that day so –,"

"What did you check my schedule or something," Musa asked very annoyed. She knew her aunt was happy about her and Daniel getting together, but it wasn't because Musa was happy. It was because Musa was dating the Prince of Crescendo and it annoyed her so much when her aunt took it upon herself to show off something that didn't concern her in the least.

"Everyone will be there and how perfect will it be, you have to miss Daniel terribly when you're at Alfea," Galiena explained as she continued to eat in a way that continued to infuriate Musa, but she couldn't just come out and yell at her aunt, so she 'took it like a lady'. "Besides it is at these types of parties where you can make your family proud,"

"By showing up with a prince," Musa said spitefully as she stood up from the table and threw her napkin on her plate. "I'm full, this was a lovely lunch, just lovely, but I have some things to do," Musa said and marched right out of the dining and into her room to get changed. She knew she probably angered her aunt, but there was only so much 'polite punishment' she could take.

After changing in her room, Musa went down around the palace and wandered for a bit before walking onto the back fields. Thinking about how much fun she was planning on have with her friend on break.

* * *

"Whoa girl," Musa cooed as she stood at the stables in the palaces as she tried to calm her favorite white stallion. It was the second day of her spring break and she had gone home to see everyone, but so far all she had done was sleep off the jet lag and get into the stables and ride the pure breeds that her palace had to offer. "Shh… Jasmine what has gotten into you?" Musa asked the horse clearly not expecting a response, but the horse did calm for a few minutes giving Musa time to see if there was anything or anyone else in the stable that could have spooked her.

Nothing. Musa simply shrugged off her horse's behavior and opened the door to Jasmine's stable spot. She gently ran her hand over Jasmine's main and then took a brush to groom her properly. "I've missed you," Musa said as she grabbed a sattel and prepared to take her horse out on a ride, but suddenly she started acting up again. "Oh Jasmine, you're so fussy today," She said as she climbed off the horse and looked again to see what the problem might be.

"You know, I'm thinking that horse just doesn't like you," Said a familiar voice from being her. Musa turned to see none other than Daniel walking towards her with a bouquet of flowers, she expected nothing less from her boyfriend now. "Personally, I don't blame her,"

"Very funny," Musa said dryly as she quickly closed the stable door, so Jasmine didn't go running off into the gardens. She then walked over to Daniel and gave him a kiss. If had been weeks since she had seen him last and it was nice to be in his arms once again. Musa pulled back and looked at him with a sly smile. "But, if I recall Jasmine hates you, ever since that time you rode her straight into the back woods and then so gracefully, fell off and broke your leg,"

"That was hardly my fault," Daniel said as he wrapped his arms tighter around Musa and gave her another quick kiss on the lips. "Jasmine hadn't been trained yet and I was 8,"

Musa and Daniel had always enjoyed going horseback riding, ever since they were kids and from as far back as she could remember, they had always raced. The day that she had brought up was when she and Daniel had snuck away from their nannies and came to the back stables of this very castle. They had decided on a race around the entirety of the castle gardens and Musa had chosen 'Ruby' her horse that she was taught how to ride on. Daniel on the other hand, chose Jasmine, who at the time was just purchased from the breeder and had yet to be trained. They raced until Daniel lost control of Jasmine and was kicked off in the woods behind the palace. It took days of crying and weeks of begging to keep her father from putting the horse down, but Jasmine was let off the hook and ever since then, for some odd reason, she was Musa's favorite horse. "Yeah but you chose to race her, and as you learned time and time again…you can't beat me," Musa replied smugly as she once again mounted Jasmine and got ready to ride. "But, you are more than welcome to try,"

"Is that a challenge, princess?" Daniel said slyly as he walked over to another horse and prepped it for a ride. "Because, I recall winning a few races myself,"

"You mean when I let you win," Musa called out as Jasmine trotted out of the stable with Musa riding her. "But hey, you wanna lose, be my guest."

"I think me and Black Magic here will be just fine," Daniel said as he got onto his horse and caught up to Musa. "And this time, I'll try not to completely crush you," Daniel said as he got close enough to give Musa a kiss on the cheek and then race off on his horse, literally leaving Musa in the dust.

"Come on Jas, let's win this one," Musa yelled as she did a quick pull on the reins and prompted the horse to nay loudly and gallop off in Daniel's direction. She then blew past him and yelled something that he only just managed to catch. "Even when you cheat, I'll still win. You can't get anything past me Mr."

Something about the last thing she said stuck with Daniel and it seemed to be bothering him for the rest of the day, although he didn't show it. The raced finished in a few minutes, and Musa came out to be the victor. The two then trotted through the palace grounds and caught up on everything they hadn't mentioned on the phone. Finally, when they were both done with riding, they made their way back to the stable.

"Were you ever planning on tell me you came home?" Daniel asked as he and Musa removed their riding helmets and put away the rest of their riding gear. Musa had come home late a few nights ago and she had spent the day before trying to adjust to the time difference and today she had just spent with him.

"Well, if I told you then how could I go out with my other boyfriend?" Musa joked as Daniel put his arms around her and gave her an un amused look. She gave a quick laugh at his expense and continued. "Sorry. But, I was sleeping all of yesterday and today we raced, well that and I had a fun lunch with my aunt. And, by the way, I totally kicked your ass. Besides I kinda wanted to surprise you since you are always surprising me. I figured it was my turn,"

"Whatever Musa," Daniel said jokingly and leaned down to kiss her. "I'm just glad that you're home," Musa didn't know why, but whenever she was alone with Daniel everything seemed to be okay. There wasn't any drama, no he said – she said, everything was good and it made her become a lot more confident in their relationship, even when her feelings for Riven began to kick up inside of her. She was now an expert at suppressing them and it was almost as if they didn't even exist to begin with. Almost. "So how was lunch with your aunt?"

"Same old," Musa shrugged. "Bad food, good manners and the planning of our wedding,"

"Ah so the usual?" Daniel said and laughed it off. They were both pretty used to all of it, but it didn't bother Daniel as much as it did Musa and for the life of her she couldn't figure out why. "We should mess with them one day and say we're engaged,"

"Yeah and then we tell them we're not, we'd get married anyway," Musa said imagining the scene if she actually did get engaged to Daniel. It was a lot to think about in high school so she tried not to. "So what are the plans for tonight? I assume we're doing something since a day just isn't a day with a party to top it off," she joked.

"You read my mind," Daniel said as they began to walk into the castle. "The girls are going to one of the clubs tonight and there's a big party there for a certain princess's homecoming. So be ready at 8, I'll be here to pick you up then,"

"Okay," Musa said as she and Daniel walked down the marble foyer to the castle doors. "So, what will I do for the rest of the day?" She asked innocently as she wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder.

"You can miss me," Daniel said with a smirk as he turned to face her. He then bent down and began to kiss her, more passionately than either of the expected, but Musa just went with it. They did have a few weeks to make up for, plus, Musa felt like she had to be more affectionate with Daniel since she still felt a guilty about they way she felt about Riven and in some twisted way, this made up for it. Well, she thought it did.

* * *

That night, Musa and Daniel arrived at the club and promptly went inside to meet their friends. The club was filled with all the same faces that Musa had seen at her goodbye party and as she linked arms with Daniel, they walked over to the table with all her close friends waiting for them. "Hey guys!" Musa said as she approached the table and everyone got up to greet the musical princess. "One hell of a party,"

"Thanks," said the twins in unison. "We thought you'd like it, everyone in here was hand selected," Annabelle said as she looked around the room proudly.

"You talk about people like fresh produce," Musa pointed out and began laughing. ":And I have to say, I've missed it," The party then progressed naturally and everyone was having fun at the table eating and catching up. That is until Leslie noticed someone walk into the party, that Musa could only guess wasn't invited.

"I can't believe she came here!" Annabelle whispered quietly, but not quietly enough since the one person she was to keep it from hear her.

"Who came here?" Musa asked looking at the door and seeing a short girl with curly blonde hair walk in the door. She could hear Leslie and Isabelle mutter awful things about how she looked and the style of her dress, so naturally Musa was driven to the conclusion that they did not like this girl.

"A big, fat nobody," Penelope said as she leaned into Justin. "She just transferred into Devon and she thinks she's the best thing to ever happen,"

"And the funny thing is, she has absolutely nothing to back it up," Annabelle said. "She's not nobility, she's not even new money. And for the past like three months she's been trying to weasel herself into our group, like that is ever going to happen." When Annabelle said that got Musa thinking about something Annabelle said on the phone with her a few days ago._ - I know what you're going to say, but she is one of those girls. Trying to climb the social ladder and sleeping with Justin is her way in, or so she thinks, not to mention he and Penelope are always so on and off,- _

"Laurie Lovell," Leslie said crossing her arms. "Even I don't like her,"

"Poor girl," Penelope said looking over to the petite blonde then back to the martini in her hand. "She doesn't even realize that she's the only penny in a diamond mine. It'll be fun destroying her,"

"I don't understand why you guys have to be so mean to her," Musa pointed out as she took another sip of the drink that Daniel had brought her. "I get that she's trying to 'climb the ladder' but why don't you just let her try, we all know she's not going to get anywhere," Musa continued logically.

"We would have," Isabelle began shooting an angry look across the table over to Daniel before looking back to Musa. "But the little bitch did something she knew she really shouldn't have done and now she has to deal with the consequences, not everyone gets to walk away without a scratch,"

"Wow," Musa said with a laugh as she leaned back in her chair and leaned into Daniel, who still had his arm around her, but now looked a lot less comfortable, not that Musa noticed, she was still to intrigued by the drama that had unfolded in her absence. It was funny the amount of trouble some girls got themselves into, it was usually the ones who had no idea what they were up against and even though Musa knew she shouldn't be laughing at someone else's expense, she couldn't help it. Her friends may be seen as bitchy, but they were just when they dished it out. The only people they messed with were the ones that deserved it. Besides, they were the ones that kept peace around here; there was a certain balance they provided. If nobody crossed them, then everything would run smoothly and if there was a small social 'hiccup' they would take care of it in order to keep everything they way they liked. "So what did little Blondie do anyway? Or the better question would probably be who?"

The whole table fell silent and everyone looked at each other and then back at Musa. For a second Musa didn't get what was going on, usually the twins were the first ones to dish gossip about the happenings of other people, but the silence meant one thing, whatever happened was in fact a big deal, not just another drama. "Wait seriously who?" Musa asked with a little concern in her voice, now really wanting to know what happened. It couldn't have been too bad since everyone was still her and still pretty much on good terms. But now matter how much she thought about it, the question remained.

After a few more seconds of silence, Musa was ready to ask what was going on when Annabelle began to explain. "I'll tell you later, promise," Musa would have pressed on, but she could tell that it was something that they didn't want to discuss in such a public setting, so she let it go for now. But, she did want to know what was going on.

After a few more minutes of awkwardness, conversation picked up normally and they began to hang out like they normally did. Nate or Musa would make a joke, that would fly completely over Isabelle's head and she would laugh about 10 minutes afterwards. (**1)**Leslie would comment on what someone was wearing, while Annabelle would drool over some guy. Just like old times. Then of coarse everyone would get up and dance about half way through the night.

Alfea was nice, but there was something about coming home that Musa loved. She loved being around her old friends and the people she had known since she was a kid. She loved knowing that no matter what happened in Magix, she had amazing friends to come home to, ones that would always be there for her.

"She doesn't look evil," Musa said as she and Daniel walked off the dance floor and over to the table to take a break. Musa had noticed Laurie looking in her direction every now and then and couldn't help but wonder why. If she really was the conniving, backstabbing bitch that everyone made her out to be, than Musa could only guess Laurie was looking at her because Laurie wanted Musa's place on top. Musa ignored it, but she knew she had left a few people disgruntled because even though she had left Devon, her spot in the inner circle was still in tact, and there were definitely people who were hoping for an opening in the group. "But, I guess I'll trust Leslie's judgment, I mean she's are a lot better at that sort of thing than I am. Do you know what happened?"

Daniel, who was sitting close to Musa, pretended that he hadn't caught any of that because he was far too uncomfortable to get into it. "Hmm? Sorry baby I just zoned out for a second,"

"Never mind," Musa said. The guys rarely ever got into the detail of what was going on with everyone. It was usually the twins who took care of anyone that stepped out of line an if it was a bigger problem then it was Leslie and Penelope that stepped in. When Musa thought about it, the only time she got involved was when there was n enormous scandal going on, which happened more than one would think. The last social coo that Musa was involved with was when Karen was under fire. Musa felt a little bad about what happened, but Karen bounced back. But the boys, they were blissfully ignorant to everything that was going on. "Anna is gonna tell me later,"

"Uhh yea, well baby it's getting kinda late," Daniel said looking at his watch. It was pretty late. "How about we get outta here?"

"And do what?" Musa said with a sly smile. "Cause I am not tired at all,"

"I dunno," Daniel said as he and Musa stood up and he put his arm around her waist. "Let's see, how about something I'm really good at. And something that will help you release all that extra energy you have," He finished with a sly smile and gave her a quick kiss on a cheek.

"Guitar Hero!" Musa said loudly as she laughed. "Since it's like the only thing you're good at, and I'm being nice..."

"Ouch, the gloves are off tonight," Daniel said as he and Musa made their way to the door until they were stopped. On their way out, the twins called Musa over to tell her about their plans for the rest of spring break and as Daniel walked over to the twins as well, he was suddenly pulled into a corner.

* * *

"You need to tell her," Leslie said firmly after pulled Daniel into the corner. "We've done enough lying for you,"

"What are you talking about?" Daniel asked knowing exactly what Leslie was talking about, but not wanted to admit it. It was clear by her face she was disappointed in him and clear by his face that he was ashamed of what he had done.

"We have all been ignoring this for too long," Leslie said to herself and Daniel. "Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. We all pretty much knew, except Nate, he's still in the dark about all of this, we figured telling him would be just about as bad as telling Musa's dad what you did," The girls were literally torn in two trying to figure out what to do in the situation. They had loyalty to both Daniel and Musa and in order to protect one, they would be betraying the other and it was something they were all fed up with, it was time to face what they all knew was coming.

"Why do I need to tell her," Daniel asked thinking about a way he could get around this.

"Because if you don't that little skank will," Leslie reminded. "The only reason the girls and I haven't sent her running home in tears and those ugly last season shoes is because she could have told Musa at any moment. And we wanted you to be the one to tell Musa what you did. It will be a million times worse if she finds out from someone else,"

"I can't," Daniel said firmly. "She'll never forgive me,"

"You will put everything in jeopardy if you don't!" Leslie reminded. "If you don't tell her, I'll have to and she'll come to realize that he boyfriend not only cheated, but he didn't have enough honor to tell her himself. You'll push her away a lot more that way. Not to mention if Laurie does tell Musa, that's it, it's over. Musa will find out and she'll find out that we knew but never told her and then there is even more problems,"

"Why can't we just get rid of Laurie," Daniel pressed on. "I mean it wouldn't be the first time you girls got someone expelled from Devon, or made them want to leave. Besides, we all now she has no power, her parents can't get her back in here, even if they wanted to. Why can't we just boot her outta here, problem solved?"

"Because you cheated on my best friend and you need to be punished for it, that's why," Leslie said and swiftly slapped him at the same time. "I hate that little bitch and I know that it takes two to cheat and she is a lot at fault as well, she was clearly in it to climb the social ladder, but I am not cleaning up your mess, Daniel," Leslie said as she walked away and left Daniel to go to Musa and confess everything he had done. "You're so lucky that we love you because if we didn't, you'd be done,"

* * *

"What was that about?" Musa asked as she and Daniel walked over to his car. Something had been off all night and Musa wasn't the only one to notice it. Nate, who was also in the dark about everything that was going on, were talking for a bit and he had admitted that things were different over the last few weeks.

"Oh Leslie wanted to see if we wanted to go to the beach later," Daniel lied. Musa didn't question him further since it looked like he was telling the truth. Musa decided to let it go since if there was something big going on, then someone would have told her by now. Maybe they were having an off week or something. "Come on baby, let's go,"

Back at the castle, Musa and Daniel walked into the game room and Musa walked over to the TV while Daniel took a seat on the couch. "So what do you wanna do?" She asked as she walked over to the large collection of video games she owned. She and Daniel were both pretty competitive people so video games were usually a good choice for them, especially since everything felt a little tense that night. "Fine, I'll pick," Musa said after a few minutes when she didn't get a response from her boyfriend. She then grabbed a DVD and put it into the TV and looked back at Daniel. "What's wrong?"

He was sitting on the couch with a dead stare and it didn't take long for Musa to deduce there was something wrong here and that was probably why everything was so off that night. "Can we talk?" Daniel said as he looked up at Musa and then immediately back at the floor, unable to make eye contact with her. Musa nodded and sat next to Daniel on the couch and waited for him to say something or explain.

"Daniel, what's wrong?" Musa asked fearing she wouldn't like what she was going to hear. She hadn't seen Daniel like this before, he had been upset before, but this was different, it was as if he wanted to say something but couldn't. "You can tell me,"

"I don't –," Daniel said and stood up and walked to the other end of the room, unable to sit so close to Musa. "I don't think I can,"

"Don't be silly," Musa said as she stood up and walked over to Daniel and put her hand on his shoulder only to remove it when he flinched to her touch. Musa really had no idea what was going on, just earlier that date everything was fine and now it was different. He couldn't look her in the eye, he couldn't even be around her. "Come on, you can -,"

"I cheated on you," Daniel spat out before she could finish. After a few seconds Daniel turned around to see how Musa had reacted. "Musa?" He ventured hoping that under some miracle that she would forgive him and not end things between them.

"Wh –What?" Musa said even though she heard him perfectly fine. Musa felt like she had just been punched in the stomach and suddenly there was a horrible tightness in her chest. It took a few seconds for what he had just said to register, but when it did, she felt sick. That was when she began putting together the subtle hints that she hadn't put together before. It was not just being betrayed by her boyfriend, but also by her best friend. How could he do ever do that to her? "You cheated on me," Musa repeated and felt even more constriction in her chest when she said it out loud.

"Musa, I am so sorry -," Daniel said knowing not what else to say.

"And worse that girl that you brought into this is going to burn for this!" Penelope and Justine were just fine at the party, and she had just passed it off as them getting back together, but Annabelle must have meant Daniel. Then, at the party the girls were basically ready to kill that girl, Laurie. It was her.

"_Okay," Annabelle said taking a deep breathe. "I think I saw…. Okay well I saw…Justin. Yeah I saw Justin cheating on Penelope and I have no idea what to do,"_

"_I know what you're going to say, but she is one of those girls. Trying to climb the social ladder and sleeping with D-," Annabelle stopped and luckily for her Musa didn't pick up on her little faux pas. "And sleeping with Justin is her way in, or so she thinks, not to mention he and Penelope are always so on and off," _

"_Well I wouldn't tell Penelope until I was sure," Musa advised. There was no telling the amount of problems that would erupt if there was a false rumor like that being spread around. "And if you are sure, you should tell Penelope."_

She felt like an absolute idiot, how did she not pick up on this earlier? Musa was now beyond the hurt that she felt and she became consumed with anger. And while a part of her knew and liked the fact that Leslie, Penelope and the twins would not take the matter of Daniel sleeping with Laurie lightly, and they would probably ruin Laurie for good. They were her best friends and when one of them got hurt, they all felt the pain of it and there was no way that her friends were going to let this slide by. Another part of her was angrier at Daniel than anyone else. "I mean it was her wasn't it? You slept with that girl and now I'm not the only one who is getting hurt by your dumbass actions,"

"Please just let me explain," Daniel said, but that only prompted Musa to get angrier. He walked over to her only to receive a slap in the face and when he recovered from the first one, he received another slap, leaving his face red and burning. Musa then turned around and began walking out of the room until Daniel stopped her again. "Musa, don't – ,"

"What can you possibly tell me that will make this okay?" Musa continued angrily not being able to control her volume. Even though the thing she wanted to do most was walk out of there and fall to pieces, she was much too angry to do anything else. "Hmm? What Daniel? Are you going to say you love me? Because we both know that's a lie,"

"Musa please, I -,"

"Or what? Did she seduce you? Poor little Daniel had no choice but to jump into bed with her because he couldn't control anything in this situation," Musa mocked with fake sympathy now stomping back toward him angrily. "I don't fucking care if that slut showed up in your room naked, you knew what you were doing and you knew it was wrong, but you continued anyway. But should I really be surprised? Prince Daniel has to get what he wants and if he feels lonely then I guessi should have just known that you'd get someone to make you feel better."

"Just let me explain,"

"You ruined everything!" Musa yelled after a few more moments of silence this time unable to keep the tears from falling from her eyes, Daniel had nothing to say that would make things better or make Musa less angry. "You don't even realize it, do you? I trusted you Daniel and you do this! You killed our relationship for what?"

"I'm sorry," Daniel said finally making eye contact with her, with obvious remorse in his voice. He had never really been able to see Musa this upset, which was why he never wanted her to find out, and even though Musa refused to believe it, he never wanted to hurt her. Unfortunately for him, Musa was not going to let this go easily.

"For what Daniel!" Musa asked sternly. "For sleeping with that skank or for single handedly destroying everything we have,"

"Hold on," Daniel said sternly looking up in shame and in anger. He walked towards Musa and finally looked her in the eye and mustered up all the courage he had. "Why don't you look me in the eye and say that I am the only one that bailed on this relationship. Look me in the eye and say that I was the only –,"

Daniel was cut off by a swift slap across his face with a lot more power than before. "How dare you," Musa said with her entire body trembling with anger as tears came streaming from her eyes. "How dare you even insinuate that! I've done nothing that would ever betray you, don't you even dare say something like that,"

"You've changed," Daniel said in a low voice clearly showing hurt. "And what's worse is that you shut me out, I know what I did was horrible, but I'm not he only one who bailed out on this relationship,"

"Don't give me that, we grew up, we changed, Daniel! I'm not that same little girl that would make forts out of bed linens with you, things have changed! I'm sorry if things are a bit different but - , "

"No Musa!" Daniel yelled back even louder and this time Musa could hear the hurt and anger very clearly in his voice. "You've changed. You've decided that this isn't what you want and I'm sorry, but I wasn't gonna wait around here like an idiot to see if I was still what you wanted,"

"What so this is my fault?" Musa spat out knowing she had abandoned this relationship before he had, but she was not going to let go f the anger, that was all she had left. "It's my fault you decided that sleep with some slut, that by the way just used to you get into our crowd. How does it feel Daniel, please tell me how it feels, because I would never do something like that."

"I never said that it isn't my fault," Daniel said looking up from the ground gritting his teeth together. "From the beginning, since we were kids, it's been me and you! The palaces, the fancy parties, everything you went through I went through and now it's like I'm dating a complete stranger. And hey if you're done with me that's fine, but don't go around pretending like we are okay,"

All the guilt that had built up inside of her made it nearly impossible to see him the same way she used to. "Stop it! Stop making me look like the villain here! I am the one that had been faithful to you, I'm the one that could have been sneaking around with guys behind your back, and nobody would have found out. But I didn't!"

"No but you wanted to!" Daniel shouted and looked at Musa. The blood drained from her face and at that second she knew that Daniel knew about her feelings for Riven in one sense or the other. But on some level, Musa knew it was going to happen, this was the guy that knew her better than anyone, he had been there for every second, every bump in the road, Musa was foolish to think she could hide this from him. She had thought that maybe he had an inkling from his accusations earlier, but now…how could she explain this? "Don't think that the little things haven't gotten by me, I know that you had feelings for someone else and you clearly tried to let that slip by me. Look me in the eye and tell me I'm wrong. Don't lie to me, is there someone else?"

"I never cheated," Musa said firmly not denying the accusation.

"You might as well have,"

The room fell into silence at the stalemate, but Musa refused to be as responsible for this break up as Daniel was. "Stop it, you cannot pin this on me so stop trying. I am not going to stand here and let you put your guilt onto me!" Musa said as tears began falling from her azure eyes once again. "You cheated. You did it and you have to deal with what comes next and god I hope it was worth it because you and me are done!"

"Musa, I'm sorry," Daniel said walking over to her and pulling her into his arms, he couldn't see her cry, it hurt too much. "It meant nothing please don't end this,"

Musa wanted so badly to just wrap her arms around him and allow him to comfort her, but she couldn't. The anger was still to close to the surface and she couldn't just forgive what he had done to her. "No," Musa said as she put her hand out and pushed Daniel away from her. It was over. With tears still falling from her eyes, Musa looked up at Daniel and tried to gain some composure. "Get out,"

"Baby, don't do this," Daniel said trying desperately to get Musa to reconsider what she had just decided.

"Get out," Musa said stepping away from him and with sadness and anger she dismissed him. "I'm not your baby anymore,"

* * *

Daniel knew when he had lost, and he had just in essence, lost Musa. Musa then exited the door in the back of the game room that lead to her room, while Daniel went the opposite direction to the castle foyer. Walking through the empty castle, Daniel knew what he had just done was the right thing, but he wished he could take it all back. Taking a deep breath, Daniel walked down the last step to see Nate, Leslie, Penelope and the twins standing at the bottom of the steps waiting for him. Before he could say a word, Leslie stepped forward and gave him a hug, even though he hardly deserved one, Leslie knew he couldn't be taking this well. "The maids told us you were here, you told her?"

"Yeah," Daniel said with a look of shame on his face. "It's over," Daniel finished as he walked past Leslie silently and past everyone.

"I'll go," Nate said knowing that while Musa was the victim here, that Daniel was not walking away from this without a care. Plus he needed to do some yelling at Daniel since Leslie had just clued him in on what happened. "I'll come by in the morning to see Musa," he said as he grabbed his keys and headed towards the door in an attempt to catch up to the prince of Crescendo.

"And that leaves Musa," Annabelle said as she took a deep breathe and looked at the other girls. "Do you think that she knows that we knew?"

"Hardly matters," Penelope said as they began to follow Leslie up the stairs and into Musa's room.

Musa lay in her bed with her face stuffed in a tear stained pillow. She had never felt so alone in her life. This was the last thing that she needed, first it was Riven to basically stab her in the back and now the one guy that was supposed to be there for her completely let her down. It was as if she only feel for guys that would hurt her. And the worst part was that Musa truly believed that Daniel was incapable of doing so.

Since she was a little girl, there were few constants in her life. There was her father and then there was Daniel, while she had become close with her other five friends as well, from the beginning she and Daniel had always had each other's backs. When her father wasn't around, that left Daniel and she still had a hard time believing that it was true. How could he put everything in jeopardy, Daniel wasn't stupid, and she knew it wasn't worth it for him to cheat and yet he did.

"Musa…?" Musa looked up when she heard a knock at her door and then Isabelle's voice followed. She was so consumed with anger towards Daniel that she had forgotten all about the fact that her friends knew that he was cheating and they didn't tell her. That just added to the betrayal she was feeling. "Sweetie, can we come in?"

"No!" Musa yelled through her pillow sounding like an angry child. She was angry at them too, but she did want to talk to someone.

"Musa please," Leslie said as she moved to the door and tried to make Musa open the door. "Open the door or I swear to god Musa Adara Dannington, I will kick it down!,"

Leslie hardly had a gentle touch, but she knew when her friends were hurting and she also knew that Musa was angry but she needed to talk to someone right now. After a few seconds the girls standing outside the door could hear Musa's light footsteps coming towards the door and then heard the door unlock, and even though Musa made nw attempt to open the door and welcome them in, rather she walked back to sulk in her bed, they invited themselves in anyway. "Musa we are so sorry," Isabelle said knowing the best way to open was with an apology.

"You knew!" Musa blurt out without turning to look at them. "How could you not tell me that my boyfriend was cheating on me?"

"We wanted to tell you, but it wasn't that easy and if you think about it you will know why," Annabelle pointed out as all of the girls took a place around Musa and tried to talk some sense into her. They were all stuck in a bad situation and even though they wanted to tell Musa, they couldn't just rat on Daniel without being 100 percent positive.

"Yeah well…" Musa said stubbornly. She understood completely as to why her friends failed to mention that Daniel was cheating, but still she needed to be angry at someone and since she had kicked Daniel out of her palace, it was her friends whom she would take it out on. "I'm still angry,"

"Musa, we are so sorry," Leslie and rubbed her back supportively trying to make her feel better. "I know this hurts,"

"How could he!" Musa wailed out as she laid her head back on her pillow and began sobbing once again. "It's like our entire relationship, it's nothing now!"

The girls sat looking at each other not sure as to how to approach this situation further. A few clichés like 'you're better off with out him' or 'he's not going enough for you' just weren't going to cut it. They could have told her that she would eventually move on from this, but how could they possibly lessen the pain of being betrayed by someone that has been so close to you for so long. "You'll get through this," Annabelle cooed.

"Yeah sweetie, look you and Daniel will get past this eventually," Isabelle said.

"I don't want to ever see him again," Musa said finally sitting up in bed and facing her friends. "He actually had the audacity to blame his cheating on me!"

"Well, hun you aren't completely blame free in this," Leslie pointed out. "I mean there was that one guy…"

"How did he even find out about that," Musa said wiping the tears from her eyes.

"We don't know, but we knew he knew," Isabelle said. "It's no excuse, but at least it's some explanation as to what happened. We are the only ones you told right?" Isabelle asked. Secrets between them were kept under tight lock and key, but if Musa had let it slip

"Karen…" Musa said as she put everything together. Karen was the only other person that knew and now Musa felt like even more of a fool. She could take some comfort in the fact that it was reasonable for her to trust Daniel, since he had always been rather trustworthy. But, Leslie had warned Musa about Karen and Musa had ignored the warnings and continued to be friends with her anyway, she even divulged a pretty big secret to her. How could she have been so stupid!

"You told her!" Leslie practically screamed. "After everything that happened you actually trusted her! She has like a million reasons to hate us, you basically gave her a loaded gun and painted a target on your back."

"I don't think the lecture is helping…" Annabelle pointed out.

"Too bad," Leslie spat out. Leslie was the one who told you everything you didn't want to hear because she knew that it needed to be done. While the twins were less abrasive when in this situation, Leslie would say what needed to be said and it was usually the most helpful. "You of all people should know you can't just trust people that easily, especially not after things like this happen,"

"I know," Musa said as she looked back down at her satin sheets and played with the beadwork on the top of it. For some reason she thought that just because she wasn't in Devon anymore that the nature of people, mostly teenage girls, had changed. No matter if you were a fairy, witch or pixie, they were all under the laws of nature and everyone got jealous and everyone wanted vengeance when they felt they were wronged. (**2**) Why she thought it would be any different in Magix she didn't know. "But, it's not like it changed what happened. Daniel cheated and it's not like I can blame Karen for that, no matter how much I wanted to. Besides, we don't know that she is the one who told him,"

"Who else could it be?" Leslie pointed out.

"I dunno," Musa admitted. "But I don't think she would do that, plus Daniel had known me forever, maybe he could tell that I wasn't being honest." She signed and looked back at her sheets and began tugging at the beads once again. "I can't believe it's over,"

"Look, it's not like this has never happened before." Annabelle said reassuringly. "People break up and things change, but you'll get passed this,"

"I dunno if I will," Musa said, she knew she wasn't thinking straight, she had just broken up with Daniel and t would take time for the wounds to heal, but for now all she wanted to do was hurt him back or make it known that he was out of her life. "I know this is wrong, but I want him to go through what he had put met though, I want revenge,"

"You already put him though what you're feeling," Leslie pointed out calmly. "If Karen told him you had feelings for someone else before he cheated than that's probably why he did it, you already hurt him. My guess is that he found out about that and then he cheated. So he could get revenge on you,"

"So this is my fault?!" Musa asked taken aback as she felt more tears begin to well up in her eyes. Were they taking his side? Musa was the one who managed to keep her pants on when they hit a rough patch and she was being blamed! It made no sense. "I was the one that was faithful!"

"No Musa, that's not what she's saying," Isabelle cooed. "Daniel is the one that ended the relationship when he cheated and it is something that he can't just be excused from. But, you can't pin this whole thing on him. You did have feelings for someone else and that can really hurt someone, I mean we can only guess what Karen was telling him or what type of proof she offered. Daniel could have been thinking that you were cheating on him. I'm not saying what you did was anywhere as bad as what he did, but come on do you really feel like he's the only one that messed up?"

"But I can't help how I feel," Musa said immediately putting her guard up when she began to see the logic in Daniel's side of the argument. She didn't want to be logical right now, she was wronged and she wanted to be angry.

"Yeah, but honestly. When you liked this guy do you think you would have let something happen if things had progressed between you two? Honestly," Leslie asked knowing the answer and knowing that Musa may not have actually gotten over this other guy.

"Yeah," Musa said. If Riven tried to kiss her back when she didn't hate him for everything that happened, she probably would have let him kiss her and she probably would have like it. "I probably would have let it happen, I'm just as awful as Daniel,"

"Neither of you are awful," Leslie said loosing the sharpness that she had earlier. "You felt guilty for every second you weren't thinking of Daniel. And trust me Daniel hasn't been sleeping easy since it happened either."

"I'm still angry at him," Musa said unable to help it. She was pissed and she knew she had every right to be. "I don't think I am going to get passed this anytime soon…"

"Well, it's a good thing that we have a lot of chocolate cookie dough ice cream," Penelope said as she opened the door and walked in to Musa's room. "Now I think this is the part of the night where we trash talk him until we are so full of ice cream that we can barely move,"

* * *

The next couple of days Musa spent alone. She stayed in the castle and insisted that nobody come and visit her, considering everything that happened, her friends let her do so. But, unfortunately for Musa, her aunt hadn't gotten the message. While Musa was laying on her bed and mindlessly flipping through the channels on her tv, the door to her bedroom suddenly burst open.

"What in the world are you thinking," Said Musa's aunt Galiena as she marched straight up to the princess and addressed her angrily. "Are you out of your mind girl! How dare you do something so stupid! You have no idea the mess your stupidity has caused,"

"Excuse me!" Musa said sitting up in her bed and facing her aunt. "First off, it is not polite to yell! Musa said in a sarcastic tone in a voice mocking her aunt's, an act that clearly angered Galiena even more. "And second, how dare _you_ come into my room and start yelling at me for no reason." Musa said as she walked off her bed and began walking in any direction that faced her aunt.

"Don't you lecture me," Galiena warned. "I knew I should have had a stronger hand in raising you, your father has let you go wild and do whatever you please and not care about any of the consequences. How dare you break up with Prince Cunningham,"

"What!" Musa said whipping around with anger. She had thought that her aunt came barging into her room anger about something like not using her salad fork or something, but this was hardly any of her business. How did she find out anyway? And how could she be so heartless, person was not supposed to yell at you after you end a relationship, they were supposed to try to comfort you. And this was her aunt, how could she be so cold to her own flesh and blood?

"Apparently the boy isn't eating and he's been acting strangely all week," Galiena explained without considering the fact that this might be a sore spot that Musa may have for the particular subject. "And then I get a call from Sophia Cunningham and she heard from some person at the hospital charity board that you two have split and then –,"

"That is none of your business," Musa shot back with absolute surprise that her aunt would actually pry so much into her private life.

"It is when you are messing up a centruy's old alliance it is my business," Musa knew that there was some pressure on her to keep her relationship with Daniel afloat because of the fact that their realms had been so close for so long, but she was not going to be with him simply for that reason. But, that wasn't what pissed her off, it was the fact that her own family saw the political gain provided by the relationship rather than Musa's happiness, and even though she knew this already, it wasn't fair that they were making her do something she didn't want. "Your childishness is going to cause realm wide ramifications if Daniel decided that he doesn't want to be allied anymore because of the heartbreak you caused!"

"First of all, Crescendo needs us as much as we need them!" Musa yelled. The Crescendian army was very powerful and it was great to have as an ally, but Musa also knew that the economy of her realm was also very attractive. "And second he broke my heart by cheating on me., so don't even get into this with me! Musa finished as she felt tears beginning to gather in her eyes. She was so angry that she couldn't help it.

"Oh stop being a child, there are something's that you will need to live with if you are going to be a princess,"

"No I don't, and this discussion is over," Musa said sternly. "I am not going to let any of your old fashioned crap get in the way of what I want,"

"Ugh, you are just like the commoner mother of yours," Galiena said in a disgusted tone.

"You will not talk about my mother like that," Musa said sternly.

"Well it's the truth and it's high time you come to grips with that, your mother wanted nothing more than to marry a prince and she did," Galiena seethed angrily. Even though Musa knew this wasn't true hearing someone say that about your mother

"And do you wanna talk about coming to grips with the truth? How about you face the fact that you will never be queen and get your own life," Musa yelled with fury. It was pretty well known that Musa's aunt felt slighted that she would never be queen. She was older than Musa's father, but being as her father felt that she wouldn't be a fitting queen since she had no husband or children, she was denied her birthright and the crown was passed to Musa's father, who only took the throne because it was his father's last wish, and he, Musa's mother and Musa became the new royal family. "Stop trying to control me in some pathetic attempt to live through me! Have you ever wondered why you aren't married? Maybe it's because you are a rude, classist, wannabe, but never- gonna- be, queen!"

"You stupid girl!" Musa's aunt said and swiftly slapped Musa across the face. "Do you realize who you are talking to, you half bred princess?"

Musa grabbed the side of her face and looked at her aunt with shock. "Do you?" Musa said angrily. "Because I am the princess of this realm, while you are nothing! That's right, I get to wear the crown you always wanted. And as princess, I have the power to kick your old ass out, so leave!"

"Excuse me!" Galiena said taken aback by the threat.

"You heard me," Musa said with an evil smile on her face, this was the moment she was waiting for, for a long time. "You want me to act like a princess? Well than by royal decree, you are now banned from this castle, now get out before I have security escort you out. Now that wouldn't look very good now would it?"

"Your father will hear about this," Galiena said as she turned around and began walking out of the room. Even after basically being told that she was a nothing, she left with her nose high in the air.

After the door shut Musa looked at the door for a few more seconds and could not believe what had just happened. Did she really just yell at her aunt? She felt bad for being so blunt, but it felt so good to finally get back at her for years of verbal abuse from her aunt. She had heard enough times that her mother wasn't royal from her aunt and even though she didn't like it, she kept her mouth shut for the sake of family, but today was the last straw.

Musa sat back down on her bed and felt pretty good about herself since she was finally able to vent some of the anger she had towards everything in her life at something and it just so happened that her aunt actually deserved it.

* * *

The rest of spring break carried on as it would have if she had never met Daniel. The girls had decided to go on a separate vacation without any guys, since it was a very sensitive subject. They all went to Leslie's beach house on the Amarian coast, known for it's beautiful shorelines. It had taken a lot to get Musa out of her room, but she finally put on a brave face for the sake of the vacation and tried to have fun, but her heart was breaking the entire time. And the fact that there were separate vacations made things worse.

Was this how it was going to be from now on? Was she going to be the reason that they couldn't be the group they had always been. Musa blamed Daniel for it all, even though she knew she deserved a lot of the blame as well. This really had ruined everything, when they were together and even before that, their group was inseparable, even when their were problems, they were never this big. Maybe if the breakup hadn't been so messy, then something could be salvaged, but that wasn't the case. Everything was destroyed and as far as Musa could see, the damage was irreparable. She had no idea as to what was going to happen now.

Musa sat in her room at Alfea staring blankly out the window, replaying the entire past week in her mind over and over.

She couldn't believe everything that had happened. In a matter of days, everything was different, everything changed. She hated everything that was going on and even though Daniel had hurt her so much, a part of her missed him. Spring break was now over and it was back to the hustle and bustle of the school year, but Musa welcomed anything that kept her mind off of what happened in the past week and a half.

"Hey girls!" Musa heard from outside her room, Stella had just arrived. She had been the first to arrive back at the dorms after break, but she had yet to get up from her bed. Musa knew she should go out and greet her roommates, but she couldn't get herself to move, she didn't want to e asked anything about her break for the fear of bursting into tears was still to imminent.

Instead, she decided to sit alone in her room and watch as the wind carried fallen leaves off the ground only to let them fall back down again. Maybe this was for the best, why would she want someone that was capable of betraying her like that.

It wasn't meant to be.

* * *

_Uh oh! It looks like the perfect couple is no more!! And that's how i planned on getting Daniel outta the picture...for now ;)_

1. _There's always one of those kinds of people in every group_

_2. Witches aren't the only ones that can be bitchy, and I know for a fact that when you have everything, you're not so nice when others try to take it. _

_Witch trap is next - lets see what this little tsunami leaves in it's wake. _

_xoxo,  
__princessm_

* * *


	14. Witch Trap

_So last we left Musa, she had just ended things with Daniel (FINALLY!) and she was back to sulking about Riven and her ex. And then there was what this chapter will focus on a lot – karen's betrayal. _

_Now you didn't think I'd let her get away with what she did? No, no, no… I have plans for her. ;)_

_Any who – here we go!_

**Witch Trap**

Musa trudged herself along the pavement of Alfea as she made her way to her dorm room on the way back from class. She had been quiet since she got back to Alfea and she knew that her friends were beginning to notice. She had been avoiding all calls from her ex since she was not at all interested in what he had to say. Daniel had probably called a further of 20 times everyday, but Musa refused to budge on her stand of not talking to him. And even though she did want to talk to someone, it was too hard to even bring up.

Bloom was now off on a date with Brandon while Techna and Flora stayed after class with Stella to try to convince Miss Faragonda to let Stella have some type of extra credit so she could bring up her grade, since she had to make up a few tests that day. It had been three days since spring break ended and Musa had done well to avoid any questions that anyone posed about how her break went. She didn't feel like talking about it, all she wanted to do was forget. Forget that it ever happened that she dated him, that she was betrayed, even though she knew it would be pretty impossible since her friends from both parts of her life would bring it up and make her face it.

But that wasn't Musa's main area of concern. She has been thinking about the first dance practice that dance team had and she still couldn't come to grips with the idea of Karen stabbing her in the back like that, sure all the signs pointed to Karen being the one who let Musa's secret getting loose, but she still didn't know if she should believe it. Maybe it was just her way of holding onto something since there was nothing really left. Whatever she was feeling, she was in no way ready to deal with it, so she simply put on a brave face and tried to go about her day like normal.

It seemed to be working pretty well. She knew that she wasn't being much like herself, she was a lot quieter and she didn't engage in anything but school work and other monotonous chores that would occupy her mind for a little, although it didn't work very well. She found herself, more often than not, replaying that night over and over again. As if it were some type of horror movie that she couldn't stop watching. But, she hadn't had any major emotional upsets, nothing to cause to feel what she knew she should be feeling. Well at least not until she heard an all too familiar voice shout her name from across the quad. "Musa sweetie!"

Musa turned to see Karen dismissing the girls she was talking to and walk over to her with a confident smile painted all over her face. "Karen…" Musa said still not sure if she should give Karen the benefit of the doubt. After everything that happened between Karen and Leslie, Musa didn't want to do anymore damage by falsely accusing her, but all that past drama did give her motive to do something like this to her. But, then of coarse, it wasn't Musa who started the all out war against her, so why would Karen have an issue with Musa on her own?

"So how was your break!" Karen said excitedly through a fake smile as she hugged Musa.

"Not that great," Musa answered honestly, she knew that Karen was out of the inner circle, but had she really not heard about what happened? Even her Aunt Galiena knew what was going on. "Just glad to be back, I guess"

"Oh, I know," Karen replied with what was so obviously fake sympathy. "I heard about what happened between you and Daniel,"

"Well why did you ask how my break was if you already knew," Musa snapped angrily. Karen was obviously trying to piss Musa off with her annoying happy disposition.

"Don't snap at me," Karen said in a tone mocking strictness with a hint of happiness sprinkled in that was meant to further anger Musa. "Just because your boyfriend cheated on you,"

"At least I had one," Musa shot back, now convinced that Karen was indeed the one who opened her big mouth and started all the problems that she was now encountering. "I mean one that was dating me for a reason other than pissing off his ex. But hey, the universe needs cheap skanks like you,"

"You know what I still can't grasp," Karen said with an innocent voice as she put her finger to her cheek as if she were deep in thought. "Is how Daniel found out that you were not exactly being completely honest with him? I mean it's rather perplexing don't you think?"

"You know what Karen," Musa said walking up to Karen so that they were face to face and so the she had a more intimidating air about her, since she was in pigtails she hardly looked menacing. She wasn't going to let Karen get the best of her, that was what she wanted. Musa had heard Leslie and the twins tell her over and over again that if she did want revenge on Karen for what she did, she would have to take a different route, one that bypassed a head on head confrontation. "How about you worry about getting someone that may actually like you, and I'll worry about the rest,"

"Oh wait that was me…and sorry I have embellished a bit," Karen continued ignoring all of the comments that Musa made, but Musa could tell that her comments didn't complete go over her head, she could tell that they did phase her a bit. Even though ever fiber in her body was telling her to kick Karen's ass, she knew that wouldn't end well, so she swallowed the anger and turned on her heels and walked away. This could be settled another way. "And I wonder who called Laurie and gave her the idea to… well you know what they did," Karen continued trying to get a reaction out of Musa.

Just then Musa stopped her pace and turned with her anger increasing exponentially with every passing second and every step she took close to that manipulative liar. "You want to start war with me Karen!" Musa said as she walked back up to Karen and got back in her face. "Because we both know who will win, I mean if I recall, it was you that was blacklisted. If you want history to repeat itself, I'll be more than happy to do it,"

"Don't test me Musa," Karen said as a sly smile formed along her lips. "You wouldn't want to call some witches here to kick your ass again would you? Hey, I can even call another guy you have a crush on and he can help in kicking your ass, I mean that would also be another repeat of history, wouldn't it b – ,"

Before Karen could continue, Musa stopped her by giving her a loud slap on the face, her last fiber of patience had snapped and she was going to settle this here and now. The slap was one that caught the attention of almost everyone in the quad. There was a lot of pain in her memories with the break up, but that day in Magix with Riven and the witches was something that she couldn't relive and recalling the memory brought back pain she didn't even know she still felt. Karen stepped back, reeling from the fact that Musa actually hit her and looked at Musa for a second. Musa, still fuming with anger, took the opportunity to literally pummel Karen to the ground, hitting her on the way down. "You stupid little bitch! I am going to kill you!"

"You don't want to take me Musa!" Karen said finally getting her sense back when she began to go on the offensive by rolling over and pinning her to the ground. "Your friends aren't here to do the dirty work Musa, you're gonna have to take me on your own,"

"Don't worry, I'm perfectly capable!" Musa said through clenched teeth and pulled the best cat fight move out there and pulled hard on Karen's hair until she was back on top and she then began hitting her when she had the opportunity. "You are going to pay for this, you stupid slut!"

"Musa!" Stella shrieked as she, Flora and Techna came across the scene. Musa could only imagine what she looked like from another point of view. True she was the assailant, but Karen was in no way the victim here. "Musa Dannington! Get off of her now!" Stella commanded, this time she sounded more motherly than anything.

Stella's commands proved to be very ineffective since the two kept fighting each other until they were literally pulled out of the gift by Miss Faragonda and Griselda. The two disciplinarians pulled the two apart until they were a safe distance from each other and right when Faragonda was ready to ask what exactly was going on, Musa finally caught her breath and screamed back at Karen.

"I didn't do anything to you!" Musa screamed pulling against Stella and Techna, who were now acting as her restraints. Everything she was feelings, the hurt and embarrassment from remembering that day in Magix, the pain from her break up with Daniel and the sting of the betrayal that Karen was guilty off. Musa felt stupid and sick and sad and angry, all at the same time and keeping it pent up only lasted for so long. She could no longer hold in everything that was going on. "I never did anything and you pulled this crap! You ruined everything. I didn't deserve that you, - you stupid bitch!" Musa said as tears began to fall from her eyes, as if this scene wasn't embarrassing enough, little did she know that the tears made her look innocent from an outside point of view, as if she were the victim, and from a certain point of view, she was.

"You just sat back and let your stupid friends destroy my reputation," Karen screamed as she struggled against the magical restraints that Griselda had summoned. "They ruined everything for me and you just sat back and let it happen! Well princess, everyone gets what they deserve and I don't care how innocent you try to be, you deserve this! Next time you'll think twice before you –,"

"That's quite enough," Miss Faragonda interrupted as she stood in between the girls with a stern look on her face. She dismissed the girls that had crowed around the two and watched as they fought. "I am very disappointed in the two of you, you are Alfea girls and Alfea girls do not behave this way! Now what is going on?"

"Nothing,' Karen said curtly. Musa was not going to go cry to Miss Faragonda either, she wanted to finish this, but it would have to be done another way.

"Well, what about you Princess Musa," Griselda asked. "Do you have anything to say?"

"No," Musa said as she pulled her arms away from Stella and Techna's hold.

"Karen, this isn't the first time you have needed disciple action, but Musa, we expected more from you," Miss Faragonda continued and walked over to Musa with a sympathetic look on her face. "Is there anything you would like to talk about?"

"No," Musa repeated looking towards the ground.

"Fine then, I assume this little tussle is now over with," Griselda said to the two girls, I expect both of you in detention tomorrow and we will discuss your punishment there. "You two should go see the nurse about those cuts and scrapes," With that Griselda and Faragonda walked away and Musa felt even worse about everything and on top of that she was probably going to have detention for the rest of the year.

"Musa are you okay," Flora cooed as she walked over to Musa. But, Musa didn't answer, instead she began walking back to her dorm room, for the threat of crying again was imminent. Her friends let her walk away and be alone for a few minutes, and then they would grill her about what was going on.

"Oh and Musa sweetie!" Karen called back after Griselda and Faragonda were out of earshot. "Give Daniel my love... or now that's he's single, I guess I'll just give it to him myself," Karen said with a maniacal laugh that followed, knowing that this was hurting Musa. "We both know how much he loves that,"

"Go ahead Karen. Knock yourself out and don't worry," Musa shouted back as she walked back to her dorm, she didn't turn around but she composed herself enough to get the last word in. "This isn't over,"

* * *

The second Musa shut the door to her bedroom, she fell to pieces. Everything that she had been holding in since she left home had come to the surface and now there was no way she was holding it in anymore. She crawled into her bed and cried angry tears into her pillow until she couldn't cry anymore. Her mind kept cycling everything that Karen had said and it wasn't that the truth hurt, because Musa knew all the information that Karen had screamed at her. It was the pain that her words brought back, when she thought about, Karen must have been feeling a similar feeling, not that Musa cared.

Musa then sat up in her bed and looked in the mirror that was straight across from her bed. She looked to the side of her face and realized that she was bleeding on her forehead right by her hair line. It wasn't too big of a cut, probably one she earned when she scrapped her head against the hard pavement part of the quad.

Everything had indeed changed; it was what Musa feared the most about her breakup. Daniel, her oldest friend in the world had become an enemy, along with Karen, both people she thought she could trust. And even though this wasn't her fault, she felt like an idiot for letting it all happen. She laid in her bed alone for the next twenty minutes until she heard a knock at the door. "Musa…it's us, can we come in?" Said Flora's voice sweetly from the other side of the door.

Musa really didn't want to explain what happened, because in order to explain what happened in the quad today she would have to rehash the entire break up plus stuff that happened in the past between her and Karen. But, there was no way she was getting out of this since everyone witnessed what happened and besides, she did want to talk to someone and who better than her friends. "Yeah, come in," Musa said as she sat up in her bed.

The girls, with the exception of Bloom who was still out with Brandon, entered the room and sat on the sides of her bed with Musa in the middle. "So you wanna fill us in on the whole fighting thing?" Stella blurt out straight outta the gate, it was pretty velar that they all wanted to know what was going on especially since Musa was fighting someone that was supposed to be her friend. "And what about Daniel being sing –,"

"I'll explain," Musa said after taking a deep breath as she got ready to talk about everything she had been keeping in. "Okay, so when I went home for spring break…"

Ten minutes later, Musa finished explaining what happened between her and Daniel and this time she didn't leave any details out. She told them how Daniel found out about how she had feelings for Riven and that he cheated on her. And even thought she was reluctant to share at first, it was very cleansing. Musa felt a lot better after she got it all off her chest, enough time had passed so she wasn't feeling the blind anger she felt when she and Daniel had just broken up, now she could be more objective.

"Oh, that explains why you haven't exactly been yourself lately," Stella pointed out. "And wow Karen is a super bitch,"

"Yeah," Musa said sadly, it would take some time before she felt like she was back to her old self and even though she was wishing everything could just go back to the way things were before everything happened, she knew it never would. "So, it's pretty much over,"

"Well," Stella thought out loud. "Is that really a bad thing, I mean, okay don't hit me," Stella said in a half joking tone. Musa gave her a wry look and then Stella continued. "I mean it, I bruise like a peach,"

"Stella…"

"Okay but you can't deny that you weren't really in the relationship 100 percent,"

"What! Yes I was," Musa defended hearing the same argument her friends gave her back at home. Why was this so hard to comprehend?

"So you can honestly say that you are completely over Riven?" Stella questioned.

"Yes!" Musa repeated with an exasperated sigh. She knew she was lying but sy was still not going to admit that she still had feelings for Riven, she had enough crap to deal with and dealing with Riven was not her idea of something she wanted to do. He had rejected her, hurt her and basically made her a laughing stock at Cloud Tower. She was never going to forgive Riven for the way he had betrayed her and his own friends. "I had a crush on him and now it's over,"

"Musa we believe you," Flora said noticing that Musa was getting a little upset. There was enough that had gone on today and there was no need to rehash old arguments. "Stella is just trying to make you feel better,"

"Look, I'm fine okay," Musa insisted. "I just need some time to think things through,"

"If you want to talk about something else, that's fine," Techna insisted.

"Too bad there weren't guys there, someone could have benefited from the attack," Stella said trying to lighten the mood. "I mean a chick fight is totally wasted in a school of all girls, I'm sure some guys would have gotten a kick out of it,"

"I don't think that's helping,"

"Hey we can talk about how we're gonna get back at Karen," Stella suggested. But Musa was far ahead of her, she may not have thought her plan through completely, but she knew she knew how to get started. "We have to get her back somehow,"

"I understand that we broke up and I'm dealing with that," Musa began. "But we used to be so close, Daniel and I. But now it's like everyone I know has been split down the middle, and I know that this is causing a rift with all my friends back home. I just really want things to go back to the way they were.

"Right now you can't see too objectively because of everything that has happened," Techna reasoned. "But with time I am sure you will be able to find a middle ground, maybe it wont be exactly as you hoped, but it will happen,"

"Yeah sweetie, don't worry about it right now," Flora said in an attempt to comfort Musa. "You will bounce back from this,"

"I know," Musa said mustering some courage and strength. "I just want some time alone for now though,"

"Okay, if you ever need to talk about anything, at all, you know I love talking, Stella said as she walked out the girls with a wink. "I'm a good at listening too, just thought I should mention that," Musa laughed a bit, for the first time since the break up and nodded. The girls nodded as well and left the room to give Musa some time to think, but Musa was not going to think about the break up or her fear of loosing her friends in the midst of it, instead she was focused on one thing.

Revenge. It was the one thing in the universe that drove even the most docile of people to violence, the most level headed to insanity and it drove the nicest to become as treacherous as those they were betrayed by. Musa had time to think about and when she thought about it, the more guilt became associated with Karen. Sure Musa and Daniel's relationship was rocky ever since she came to Alfea, but it could have ended on much better terms. There was no doubt in her mind that some of Daniel's actions were a direct result of Musa's dishonesty, but there was still the matter of getting even with Karen. Sure it was immature, but she was a woman scorned and being rational just wasn't in her mindset right now.

* * *

After a few minutes alone wallowing in her anger in her room, Musa got up and began to do a few things that she needed to finish for school. Later that day, Musa went over to Ali Larson's room. Ali was the only other freshman who made the dance team and she and Musa had become good friends over the course of the year and even though Musa wasn't feeling particularly trusting, she needed Ali's help. "Hey Musa, are you okay? I saw what happened earlier…you know in the quad," Said the petite brunette when she opened the door and gestured for Musa to come in.

"Yeah…about that," Musa began when she sat down on a chair that was placed next to Ali's desk. "I need your help to –,"

"Get back at Karen?" Ali finished with a knowing smile on her face and Musa looked a bit surprised that Ali knew what she wanted. Just as she was about to ask how Ali answered the question for her. "I managed to catch what the two of you were screaming at each other while you had that little chick fight. But I have to say, I'm kind of honored that you are coming to me for this, how sweet!"

"Oh well I guess I should explain," Musa said. Ali knew about Daniel since she had also seen him come and visit that one day when he came to Magix when Musa had her run in with the witches, but she hadn't learned too much about the breakup. But, the fight that Musa got into with Karen probably cleared things up.

"No need," Ali said putting her hand up in order to stop Musa from going any further. "I find that plots for revenge go over a lot better when you don't over think why you're doing it,"

"So you're going to just help me without any convincing or explanation," Musa asked skeptically. She was not in a trusting place right now so the whole idea seemed suspicious, but Ali had nothing against her and they had become god friends, not to mention Musa had helped Ali a lot in dance practice.

"Well why not?" Ali said with a perky smile. "Besides you may have just started hating Karen, but let me tell you she's not exactly the nicest person in the world,"

"It's good to have an ally,"

"I'm not sure if you know this, but not many of the other girls on the team like her that much either. Oh and about the whole explanation thing, when people tend to think about it and rationalize and they either get angrier or let it go," Ali reasoned as she took a seat on the edge of her bed and looked to Musa and continued. "It's no fun when you loose your motive for revenge and when people get too angry they tend to go over the top. So this is pretty much a happy medium,"

"You've done this before?" Musa questioned a little surprised at Ali's know how on the subject. She was reminding her a lot of the twins by how nonchalantly she was discussing the plan.

"You could say that,"

"Good, I'm going to need some know how on this," Musa admitted. Karen was right; Musa really couldn't do this on her own since she had absolutely no experience. She had seen her friends do this sort of thing a million times, but she usually saw them in the planning stages and then the final result, but everything that went on in the middle was pretty much a mystery. "I'm not good with the whole plotting against someone thing. And I have no idea where to begin,"

"I do," Ali said after a few moments of silence. "Remember when Ms. Faragonda pulled you two apart?"

"Yeah," Musa said not wanting to recall the event.

"Well, she said she was disappointed in you and – ,"

"And she said that this isn't the first time that Karen needed disciple action," Musa finished for her, still not sure where she was going with this.

"So we start at her records," Ali said connecting the dots. "

"You'd be surprised how easy it is to mess with records," Ali said as she flipped through her dorm directory and then looked up at Musa's inquiring face. "I'm assuming,"

"Oh to get the correct record you need her ID number," Musa said when she looked at the directory that Ali was flipping though and she then began to connect the dots on her own. "And dorm rooms are arranged by ID numbers so you look in the directory,"

"And we are just a hop, skip and a jump away from her ID number," Ali said with a sly smile. "And her entire record from 1st grade to her latest academic boo-boo,"

"And with that, we'll have any leverage we need," Musa said confidently. "But we don't really have much to do with the information when we get it and how are we gonna get it?"

"Well, leave getting it to me," Ali insisted. "My dad just donated three new computer labs at Magix University and a whole knew potions lab, so I can get the university to call in to Alfea and get the academic records of some students and disciplinary records might be a little harder. But, unlike you I happen to be on Griselda's good side. I'll figure it out,"

"If I may," Musa asked still a little shell shocked that Ali had so much planned in the time that Musa had brought up the subject. "How about we use the dance team, I mean figure something out to, I dunno - ,"

"Oust her," Ali finished when she noticed how uncomfortable Musa felt with the idea of doing something like that. But, she also knew that Musa would never exact her revenge if she started feeling guilty now, and there was still much to be done. "Okay stop over thinking this, this is the girl that played a huge part in breaking up you and Daniel. A relationship that went far beyond dating, you guys were best friends before that and god knows if you'll ever get it back. She deserves this. And to pull something like this off, we're gonna have to get very buddy-buddy with some senior fairies, particularly ones on the team,"

"Yeah you're right," Musa said when she thought about how much Karen had messed up her entire world. She needed to pay for this, not just so Musa could feel like they were even and so Musa could maybe move on from this whole ordeal. "Let's take the bitch down,"

"That's my girl," Ali said with a laugh as she and Musa began to talk and work out the details as to what they were going to do. It took a few hours to finally figure out what they wanted to do and a few more hours to figure out how they were going to do this. Musa and Ali had worked it out so that they could both benefit from the uprising, she wanted to make sure that Ali got something for all the effort she was putting into this.

Much later that night, Musa snuck quietly into her dorm room after hours of scheming with Ali. With a yawn she quietly shut the door and began walking toward her room when she heard a tapping at the window, when she walked over, she didn't see anyone at the common balcony. But, when she looked over to the side of te window she saw Bloom walk out onto the balcony that was on her room. She then saw Brandon sitting on his leva bike offering his hand out to Bloom to help her on.

"Aww," Musa said happily unable to look away from the budding relationship. They were just so adorable! But then that caused the memories of Daniel to come flooding back. She tried not to think about him, but she did, every day. He was always doing hopelessly romantic things like that and no matter how much Musa told him not to do things that sappy, he would because he knew that a part of Musa loved the attention.

He knew her the best out of anyone in her life and yet he was capable of hurting her so much and it killed her when she reminded herself of that. Musa sighed at the thought of what she had but she tried not to feel bad for herself and instead be happy for Bloom. Besides someone around here should have a decent love life and it was clear that Musa wasn't going to be the one who did. She looked at the two talking and then went back to her room to get some sleep. Sure it was past curfew and if Bloom got caught she would be in huge trouble, but Musa wasn't about to stand in the way of those two.

* * *

The next morning however, Musa sort of wished she had stood in the way of those two lovebirds. "What do you mean she never came home, I mean are you sure she didn't leave early this morning," Techna asked sternly and loudly enough to wake up a slumbering Musa.

"What's up guys," Musa asked still very groggy from waking up. She sat up in bed to see Flora standing in front of the door and Techna at her desk, both with very strict looks on their faces. "Seriously, I can't guess this early in the morning,"

"Bloom wasn't in our room when I woke up," Flora answered.

"Maybe she went for a jog or something," Musa answered before remembering that she had seen Bloom and Brandon ride off into the night the night before. "Oh wait..." Musa said as she began to wake up and her memory began to run like normal

"What?" Techna asked anxiously. "Do you know something?"

"I saw her getting onto Brandon's leva bike last night," Musa admitted now wishing that she had stopped Bloom, she was surely going to get in trouble for not stopping her from going out. She was after all talking to Techna and Flora, maybe with Stella she would have some room to slid, but here, not so much. "I figured I would let her go I mean what's the harm?"

"The harm is she didn't come home!" Techna practically yelled. "She hasn't called, we have no idea where she is,"

"Maybe she didn't wake up yet," Musa spat out in her defense and then realized what she was implying. But, the last time she didn't come home at night it was still pretty innocent. "I didn't mean it like that but even if something happened…nevermind,"

"Okay we should call Brandon," Techna said sternly, obviously not very amused by Musa's innuendo. "Flora you go see if Stella knows anything,"

"Phone's ringing," Musa said as she switched her cell phone onto speaker phone. She had decided to do that as soon as possible so she didn't have to endure the lectre she was probably going to get from Techna, but since they found out about her break up, her fiends had been super nice to her, which helped a lot in this situation.

"Hello?" answered a groggy Brandon, it was pretty obvious that they were the ones who had woken him up, meaning if Bloom was with him, she was probably sleeping as well.

"Brandon do you know where Bloom is?" Musa said getting right to the point.

"W – W- What?" He stuttered, Musa wasn't sure if it was from waking up or if he felt uncomfortable about saying something.

"Oh god she's there isn't she," Techna said disappointedly.

"Wait….what?" Brandon asked.

"Ignore her, do you know where Bloom is?" Musa asked seriously. "I mean I saw the two of you sneaking off from Bloom's balcony last night, and from there we haven't seen Bloom since. So can you fill in the blanks,"

"We went to Cloud Tower to read this book that the witches –,"

"You took her to Cloud Tower!" Techna yelled once again and this time stood up and walked over to Musa.

"Yeah, that and it's not exactly a hot spot for dates…" Musa added

"She wanted to see a book that was supposed to be about her, anyway she didn't really like what she read and she got pretty upset, so she decided to walk back to Alfea cause she wanted to be alone," Brandon said finally without being interrupted by one of the fairies.

"So she's somewhere between here and Cloud Tower, hopefully I mean something could have happened," Musa summed up.

"Sorry girls I –,"

"Don't worry we'll get her," Musa reassured knowing that if she kept giving Brandon a hard time he would actually feel horrible and there was no need to freak out or panic until they looked at every possibility as to where Bloom would be. Musa hung up the phone and turned around to see Techna sitting on her bed with an impatient look, and Musa began to explain. "Okay, so they went to Cloud Tower last night to look for some book, apparently Bloom didn't like what she read and asked to walk home alone,"

"And he just let her go! Ugh, whatever, we need to go talk to Stella and Flora," Techna said as she stood up and she and Musa walked out of the room and over to Stella's room.

"We just talked to Brandon," Techna said as she and Musa opened the door to Stella's room and walked in. "She walked home last night,"

"From Cloud Tower," Musa added ominously as she sat down on the floor. There was definitely a need for concern since Bloom and the rest of the Winx Club weren't exactly buddy-buddy with the witches and witches all together didn't like fairies.

"All by herself," Stella exclaimed

"She could be stuck in the dark forest, she could be lost we have to find her, before something awful happens," Musa said. The girls rushed down to the quad and looked around for a bit to see if maybe she had come back

"How are we going to find her?" Techna asked in an exasperated tone. They had all searched around the school and there was no luck. And now the possibility that something really bad happened to their friend was pretty immanent.

"We're all going to have to work together," Flora said "We're gonna have to use everyone's powers so let's go," And then she transformed into her Winx form and then the rest of the girls followed suit. "Floral navigator," Flora yelled after she finished transforming. Then, particles that looked almost like pollen flew into the air and then they formed an arrow on the ground that pointed east. "Alright, we need to go east, she's defiantly in that direction,"

"I'll bounce some sound waves to probe the area," Musa said, Flora's spell was good, but it only gave them a direction, but hopefully probing the area with some hypersensitive sound waves would help give a more pin pointed area. Musa gathered her energy and sent out sounds waves into the direction that Flora's pollen arrow pointed to. She concentrated for awhile and then finally felt a bit of resonance, which meant that she had found Bloom. "I got a reading," Musa announced finally.

"Great, air sync it over to me, I'll analyze it," Techna said, all Musa had right now was one specified area where Bloom was, but it would only help if Musa was going it alone, but since she was working with the girls on this one, they would need a more accurate measure. "I found her! Bloom is exactly…here," Techna said when she opened up her palm and showed the girls a virtual map of the forest and finally stopped at a location that looked like a clearing in the trees. "I'll get the coordinates,"

"Ooh la la," Stella said happily as she flew into the air. "Those things are very helpful, but we need the most important part, I'm or coarse referring to what I am going to contribute, you see,"

"What is, don't keep us in suspense," Techna said sarcastically as Musa rolled her eyes. If there was one person in their group with way too much of an ego, it was the solarian princess, who always felt the need to top everyone, not that anyone cared or really paid much attention to her anyway.

"It's the guiding light," Stella said as she flew up in the air. "this will guide us to her exact location,"

"You know that's exactly what Flora, Techna and I just did…right," Musa said pointing out the obvious, but Stella wasn't even listening.

The four fairies then flew up into the air and used Stella's guiding light in combination with the information that Techna, Musa and Flora processed as guides. It was a lot of flying, since getting to the darker areas of the forest took awhile since it was so secluded, but finally they were getting close. "Hey let's take it by foot now," Musa said when she looked around the area and noticed that the clearing was coming up. "We're close,"

"How do you know?" Flora asked.

"The sound waves I sent out at Alfea are coming back to me at a faster pace," Musa said looking in different direction trying to figure out where the sound waves were coming back to her fastest. "Meaning we're getting close, hey do you hear that," Musa said picking up on voices that sounded like they were arguing.

"No…" Stella replied.

"Listen," Musa commanded and as they walked closed they all began to hear very familiar voices, and one that wasn't so familiar. "It's Bloom and the witches," Musa finished and they immediately flew into the air to see what was going on, naturally when the Trix were involved it couldn't be anything good. They quickly flew behind Musa until they came upon the scene.

Bloom was in a clearing with some other girl, she had scarlet red hair and was a gangly little thing, Musa really couldn't tell if she was a witch or not. The gothic highlights made her think that maybe she was a witch, but then she wasn't threatening Bloom, so maybe she wasn't? All of a sudden the witches put Bloom and Mirta were incased in an ice block and the Winx Club was ready for a battle in a second.

"Stella, Icy's hand," Musa said drawing attention to the militant witch right as Icy was going to fire an attack towards the ice block.

"Ooh freeze them in an ice coffin," Stella said when she shot a sun beam straight at Icy's hand to prevent her from attacking the two incapacitated girls inside the ice block. "Has anyone told you you're predictable? You need to majorly update your attack collection" Then, Stella proceeded to unfreeze the ice coffin and free Bloom and that other girl.

"Oh you stupid fairies," Icy said among other things that Musa was hardly listening to. She was far more focused on Darcy. This was the first time since that fateful day in Magix that she actually had the chance to get back at the witch. The Trix had attacked them before, but it was during Magical Reality class and they attacked Bloom and left after she defeated them. Musa was so ready to get back at that skanky witch and the events that unfolded earlier that morning with Karen had Musa ready to fight. "You are so over,"

"You're over!" Spat out the girl who was beside Bloom. _Seriously…who is this girl!_ Musa thought, she was obviously on their side since she had just shot a really pathetic excuse for a come back at the witches.

"Oh please, this isn't even a contest," Stormy said and flew straight up into the air at the Winx Club ready for an attack. She summoned two tornados that began to encircle the girls. Musa could feel herself being pulled towards the center, but she flew back until she felt Stella's back against hers.

"Stay together," Musa said. The point of the tornados was to split them up and instead of fighting them as a unit, Stormy could take out one at a time, which would probably be a lot easier. "We need to stay together," She repeated.

Musa could feel her powers slipping, the wind was way too strong and she could barely lift her hands, so summoning an attack was out of the question. This wasn't the best feelings, especially not now. She had been feeling so powerless, like she couldn't control anything that was happening in her life, and now she couldn't even control the outcome of a simple fight with the witches. And, maybe if she hadn't told the girls to stay together than they wouldn't have been stuck in the hold in the first place.

Just then Musa looked up and saw a huge scorpion appear in front of the witches and suddenly the restraints that were holding her back fell and she could finally summon some attack and start fighting back. Musa looked down and saw that the girl Bloom was talking to helped them. But she was simply _Okay, all witches aren't bad_ Musa thought as she zeroed in on Darcy and got ready to take her revenge.

But, before she could, Icy put a spell on Mirta and turned her into a pumpkin, which in turn angered Bloom and that led to Bloom taking the lead on kicking some witch ass.

* * *

Once back at the dorms, the girls had decided to hang out in the common room after they tried for hours to find a spell that might break the spell on Mirta. But, Flora and Techna had to get started on a project together and Stella had received a call from Sky which left Musa and Bloom. "So, um…Stella filled me in on what happened," Bloom said out of random during a conversation with Musa that was originally about the upcoming project that the girls had to do for defense against the dark arts class. (**1**)

"Oh about Daniel," Musa said suddenly feeling uncomfortable. She didn't know why, but she had explained what happened so many times that it defeated the original idea of not thinking about the break up. "Yeah that sucked… Did you hear what happened this morning?" Musa said not sure as to what else she should say, yeah she was upset, but she didn't want to keep going into this, she wanted to get over it and move on.

"Yeah, Stella told me about that too. Are you okay?" Bloom asked with a genuine look of concern on her face. "I mean if you want to talk about anything or anything like that, I'm here,"

"Thanks, but I'm okay" Musa said trying not to laugh since she had been hearing that all day and ever since it happened. "But you missed quite a show, I won!"

"Well, yeah," Bloom agreed as her tone lightened to match Musa's. "Karen is no match for…well anyone over the age of 10,"

"So true," Musa said with a laugh and then glanced at the clock to see it was time to go see Ali about her plan. "I should go, I have to talk to Ali, but we can chat about kicking Karen's ass later,"

Bloom then went to her room and Musa went to go talk to Ali about the details of their little plot. "So, turns out getting someone's records isn't all too hard around here," Ali said when she opened the door and invited Musa into her room. "Don't ask what I did, but they are right her and I think you should see them,"

"Great," Musa said as she sat down on the same chair she had sat on earlier that day. "So is there anything good?"

"I think you should see for yourself," Ali said with a devious smile. "Oh and I went to the library and picked up this, it's the handbook on what activities are offered here and what you need to do to participate,"

Musa took the and flipped through as a smile began to form across her face. "Oh this is perfect," Musa said and continued to look through. "Wow…perfect,"

"Isn't it!"

"Yeah, it's like she's asking us to ruin her,"

"Whether she asks or not," Ali said looking through the file once again. "Bitch is going down,"

Musa looked up and laughed when she saw the confident look on Ali's face as she thought about the hell they were going to unleash upon Karen. And for the first time since the break up, Musa was feeling better.

* * *

1. _Yet another reference to my favorite wizards over at Hogwarts…._

_A catfight with Karen, then a plot to take her down and of course we still have to deal with all that post-break up awkwardness, like the first time they see each other after the whole ordeal. Then there is dealing with the aftermath of everything that happened between Musa and her aunt. But, we can't forget the witches, and I'm gonna throw Riven in the mix – just because I can. _

_Next up – Pushing the evelope_

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	15. Pushing the Envelope

_I got a few reviews and PM's from you guys asking for another scene with Musa and Riven before he gets put under Darcy's lock and key (as if he's not under it already). So I think you guys will be happy with this. Besides, I did want a few more scenes between them than the show provides, since they needed to develop a relationship and the show never really shows that. (Which was why i had them run into each other in an earlier chapter). Also I just wanted to point out that the girls hardly ever see the guys in the season. I mean really! I dunno maybe they have dates when we're not watching. _

**Pushing the Envelope**

"Ugh, you can't be serious!" Musa said agitatedly. Professor Wizgiz had just announced that there would be a quiz that would count as a major assessment and it would also expel those students that didn't pass. "A little heads up would have been nice, I mean the day before!" She complained. The quiz was tomorrow and they were giving very little notice.

"These rules come from all the way up there," Wizgiz explained as he nervously packed all the books from his desk into his suit case, as if her were scared the girls were going to start a cat fight with him. Musa could imagine that happening, and chances were that he would lose and it wouldn't be so bad since it might postpone the quiz. "There is nothing I can do, but urge you to review the material and get a good night's sleep,"

"So wait, they will just kick us out?" Ali asked as she walked over to Musa's desk and dumped her books on the desk next to Musa's.

"Well, if we study then they will have no reason to kick us out," Musa knew how much Ali hated those people that were super optimists, she wasn't dark or anything, more of a realist, and kind of a bitch.

"Yeah, so not going to happen." Ali said sitting down and looking at her nails. "I mean I have to go to dance till like ten tonight, let me tell you the team isn't doing so great since you left,"

Musa had quit the dance team after everything that happened with Karen, since she was a year ahead of Musa she had a lot more power in the team than Musa did and Musa really didn't want to be anywhere around her. But, from what Ali had been telling her, the team wasn't doing so good without her. Musa couldn't help but smile when she heard the news, but she wasn't surprised. She was usually the one who helped the girls that couldn't pick up the routine as quickly with their steps and without someone to do that, it meant longer practices for everyone. "That sucks,"

"Oh you are just loving this,"

"I am not,"

"Oh, yes you are. You suck at lying" Ali claimed. "We need to hurry up and bring Karen down so things can get back to normal, I mean I loved dancing but she is one eight count away from getting her ass kicked,"

"Try to control yourself," Musa said as she got her books and followed Stella out of the room and into the hallway.

"I can't believe we have another huge quiz," Musa complained as she and Stella walked back to the dorm. It was clear that they needed to study, but the chance of being kicked out of Alfea was going to make it impossible to really concentrate.

"Can they really kick us out?" Stella began to bite her nails, which was a clear indication she was nervous since she never ruined her manicure unless there was something big happening. "I mean just for not passing one quiz!"

"I guess they could," Musa thought out loud and then looked to Stella who looked like she was about to be sick. "But hey I guess I could donate a new potions lab and you could give a new computer lab and get back in," Apparently the joke didn't go over so well with the princess of Solaria, because she same nauseated look didn't seem to leave her face. "Just kidding Stel…. Don't worry we'll study all night,"

"Good because I cannot get kicked out again!" Stella complained loudly as she opened the door to their dorm. "I mean Prince Sky and I are finally making some progress, I mean he is a great kisser and he's totally sweet. I can't leave again – oh hey look something came for you," Stella said when she picked up a letter that was sitting on the coffee table in the common room. "Maybe a pathetic love note from a heartbroken prince," Stella said handing the letter over to Musa, who had taken a seat on the couch and pulled out every book and note that she had ever taken in Wizgiz's class.

"Doubt it," Musa said bitterly as she took the letter and began to open. "He's probably too busy sleeping with some random girls," Musa then opened the letter and read it through. "Ugh I think I would have rather had Daniel sending me a letter,"

"Why whose it from," Stella asked as she sat down next to Musa and flipped through a few pages of the notebooks that Musa had laid out. "Hey do you think there is going to be any triple spell casting?"

"I dunno," Musa said not really listening to Stella. She continued to read the letter and then finally put it down with a frustrated sigh. "My aunt wants to have lunch…today,"

"Wait – the same one that basically told you to suck it up when you and Daniel broke up?" Stella asked and grabbed the letter to read it for herself. "You should go and spill something all over her,"

"I don't think that will go over too well," Musa sighed and looked back at the letter and rubbed her head. "First the quiz, now this, and I still have to meet with Ali about a few things later. I am starting to get a major migraine."

"So are you going," Stella asked once again as she mindlessly flipped through more of the textbooks that were laid out, it was obvious that she wasn't paying much attention to the words on the pages, but she continued to focus a part of her attention to them.

"I dunno," Musa admitted and then stood to meet Flora and Techna who had just walked into the dorm and over to Mirta. "So any progress on turning her back?"

"Okay I came across this spell last night," Everyone gathered around Flora and Mirta, who was still in pumpkin form, and watched as hopefully she turned her back into a person. Stella had even gotten up from her spot, apparently her panic over the quiz had lifted. "Let's see if it works. Mist of marrek, power unfurled turn this pumpkin back into a girl,"

"That sounded like major reak not mist of reek," Stella complained at the smell that began to diffuse all over the room. It smelled horrible, like bad eggs and when the smoke cleared it showed that the spell didn't even work.

"Yeah I don't think it's working," Flora said sadly as she put her hands down and looked over to Mirta disappointed.

"Well you know, witch on witch spells are very difficult to break," Techna walked over to Flora and tried to help her out, she had been working on the spell for awhile.

"Yeah but this is Flo, plants and vegetables and stuff are supposed to be her thing," Musa exclaimed not realizing how rude she sounded, she had her aunt on the brain and she was still deciding whether she was going to see her or not.

"You try it Miss lets just dump her in a patch," Flora began getting defensive.

"I will! And that was Stella wanted to plant her," Musa mocked, in her defense if was Stella who had suggested putting Mirta in a little patch, but Musa was pretty sure that Stella was just kidding about that. "Sorry Flo, I know you tried,"

"It's okay," Flora said as she walked over to her books and looked for some more spells. "I think I should give it a rest for awhile, I mean Wizgiz's quiz is tomorrow,"

"Can we please not talk about it!" Stella asked as she walked back over to the coffee table that was stacked with books. Musa looked to Stella as she made her way to the door and rolled her eyes, she had more mood swings than a pregnant lady. "Hey Musa where are you going?"

"Lunch," Musa grabbed her bag and walked out the door. She figured she would give her aunt at least a little bit of her time, besides she knew that if she didn't then she would get a huge lecture from her dad about being more respectful to her family, even when they were in the wrong. This was probably Galiena's attempt at a truce.

* * *

Musa walked out of the school and saw that there was a limo parked in the front. She noticed that there were flags on both ends of it which meant that it could bypass a few parking and other motor vehicle laws (**1)** and she noticed that the flags were the flags of the Harmonic Nebula. Musa sighed when she saw it, her aunt had sent her this not to make it more convenient for her, but so that Musa didn't walk or worse take as bus.

So, Musa walked straight past the limo and boarded the bus that was headed towards Magix.

The restaurant that Galiena had chosen was actually one of the ones owned by Penelope's father. It was very exclusive, but the food was to die for. Upon walking in, Musa kinda hoped that she would be walking in on some surprise party that they had decided to throw for her, it wasn't a stretch, they had thrown her many parties before. It would be great to walk in and see all of her old friends and her new friends talking and having a lot of fun together, it would have been a nice alternative to lunch with Galiena.

But it still made Musa wonder if in her little fantasy, Daniel was there amongst her friends. If she were thinking this before spring break and the breakup, he would have been there, but now it was different. And if he wasn't there would some of her other friends not be there as well. She tried not to think about the impending rift that was bound to materialize after their break up. Musa kept pondering the thought when she heard her aunt's voice breaking her out of the concentration.

"You didn't take the limo darling," Galiena asked when she saw Musa walk into the restaurant. She stood and smiled politely as she waited for Musa to make her way to their table. And Musa could feel a small pounding in her head, a common occurrence when she was around her aunt. "Aw, I really didn't want you to walk all the way here,"

"Oh I didn't," Musa said with the same fake smile that helped her endure all her conversations with her aunt. "I took a bus," Musa knew that it would make her aunt cringe to know that Musa had taken public transportation, and it did.

For the next twenty or so minutes, the two sat silently eating the food before them. And this time Musa was careful to mind her manners. She didn't know why her aunt hadn't even broached the reason she was here, at least the real reason. Her letter had said that she wanted to work out some of the animosity that had risen during spring break. But her aunt was way too proud to ever apologize to her, so what was this really about. Musa knew that there was something brewing and it would be best to just get it out there and get it over with than keep pushing to see what happened next.

"So what is it exactly that you want? I mean other than being a royal pain," she sniped. She had a lot to do today and the last place she wanted to be was here. She knew that the quiz that decided her fate was the next day and she was feeling oddly at ease about it. She knew she was just kidding when she told Stella that they could buy their way back into the school, but she probably could. It worked for Stella, and she had better grades than Stella did, but still. Maybe it was because she had been doing fine in the class all year, if she could do well all year then she could do well on this test too.

"I know you don't want to see me right now, but we can at least be civil," Galiena said politely and quietly trying not to attract anymore attention. It was clear that she was not too excited about introducing the conversation either. "Besides I am the one that should be angry at you, you had me thrown out of the palace as if I had broken in,"

"Well you certainly weren't welcome," Musa said obstinately, she was not going to drop the grudge she had towards her aunt even if she was making an effort to make up for her past transgressions. Musa knew that it was only an act. "So what is so urgent you need me on such short notice? I mean a few hours notice is a little rude…." Musa said with a tone mocking her aunt's serious attitude.

"Alright, that's enough lip out of you," Galiena scolded. "I am your aunt after all and you should respect your elders no matter what,"

Musa held her tongue and decided to let her explain herself. She was right, she did deserve a little respect and Musa knew this had to be somewhat important if she had made the trip all the way to Magix to talk to her instead of just calling. "Alright," Musa said in a more relaxed tone. "What do you need?"

"Well since you asked so nicely," Galiena smiled a wicked smile as she imitated Musa's tone. "You know that the Royal Charity Ball is in a few days and it is at the Luxe Ballroom in Magix and I wanted to give you some – ,"

"I'm not going to the Charity Ball," Musa interrupted knowing there was an agenda behind her aunt's visit. There was no way in hell she came here to patch things up, she always had an alter motive for everything she did.

"Yes you are," Galiena pressed on and refused to let Musa get a word in. "You are expected there and I know that you haven't been feeling up to it since the little argument you had with Daniel, I know how you feel, believe it or not I had my heart broken when I was young,"

"Oh I don't doubt that at all," Musa said under her breath angrily. Was she really here to make her go to a ball where her ex would be there? She had to know how uncomfortable it made Musa, especially if she had been though the same thing when she was younger, something Musa didn't doubt. "and we didn't have an argument, we broke up,"

"Yes well anyway, I was talking to Dutchess Amber Riley and her son William will be attending. Poor boy has been so busy over at Chilton Academy**(2)** that he hasn't had the time to find a date for the event. You do remember William don't you?"

"Yes….vividly," Musa groaned. William was definitely not a bad looking guy, actually he was pretty handsome, but a totally royal ass. He was the typical prince that expected everything to fall into his lap and the kind of girl he wanted was the kind that wouldn't mind being 'seen and not heard'. He wanted the kind of girl that Musa's aunt was trying to turn her into, someone who would sit politely on her throne and plan parties. And of coarse have lots of heirs to the throne and teach them to be the same royal robots that their parents were. In short, he was pretty on the outside and a nightmare on the inside. "And I know where you are going with this – ,"

"Good then you will agree to be his date to the ball," Galiena said excitedly. "That is perfect and this way your heart can heal from everything that has happened recently," she finished as she reached her hand over to the other end of the table and took Musa's in a sympathetic gesture, that only served to piss off Musa further.

"I already told you, I'm not going," Musa was going to stand firm on this. She didn't want to see Daniel at all, nor did she want to be forced around other people she didn't like. Besides, she had better things to do with her time, like finding out why the witches were constantly after them or why she couldn't seem to get her mind off of Riven.

"Musa please," Galiena said her voice becoming firm once again. "Your father wants you to be there. And he asks so little of you, he wanted to be here in person to insist you go, but he is in Crescendo with the King Alexander at a meeting. Pity Crescendo can only be an ally, I mean a joined kingdom would have been so perfect…"

Musa's jaw tightened when she heard what Galiena was getting at and the headache that she had earlier was starting to come back with more force. She knew it would be really hard for Galeina to grasp since she had such high hopes for her relationship with Daniel, but Musa really didn't want to think about it. "Dad didn't mention anything about it when I talked to him so are you sure it isn't you that wants me to go?"

"That is because your father didn't even know about the ball until I told him about it last night," Galiena seemed to have an answer for everything and that meant that Musa was probably not going to be able to get out of going to this one. "Honestly, there needs to be someone around the palace to remind him of these things, and since you have made it clear that you do not want to embrace your royal heritage, it is up to me. But even I can't keep up with everything, my social calendar is also very full,"

"First of all," Musa began finally being able to get a word in. where did she get off thinking Musa didn't like her life. Sure being of noble blood had a lot of downsides. But it wasn't like she would wish she was someone else, being royal had a lot of perks as well and she wasn't so high up on her high horse to deny that she part took in them. But she didn't like the unwritten rule that said that her life would be dictated to her by someone else. "I like my heritage just fine, it's just I'd rather make a few decisions on my own without having to consult the royal advisors on every move I make,"

"Well wake up angel!" Galiena exclaimed raising her voice to match Musa's. "You get to live the life others only dream about and you complain about the minute details! You should know that a princess' destiny is not her own. You must do what is good for not only you but your people and sometimes that means overriding something that might make you happy,"

"No! That is how you see it," Musa retorted. Her aunt made it seem like if Musa didn't do exactly as she was told the entire kingdom would go down in flames. Her political decisions could be completely separate from her personal ones. She didn't need to marry a prince for the good of the kingdom, as long as the ruling family knew how to run the kingdom, everything was fine. "I can be a perfectly good queen without having to give up my freedom thank you. And don't try to make it seem like you have noble reasons to do the things you do. 'To help my people' Please! You want me to be with Daniel because it will make the family look good. And if I am with someone below my status, you get embarrass you and that's why you never want it to happen."

"Lower your voice," Galiena commanded as she looked around the room and noticed that she and Musa had attracted some unwanted attention. "You certainly know how to create a scene. And if you must know, you have to be with someone of your status for your own good! Do not act like you know everything, because I have been through it all before and all I am trying to do is protect you!"

"Please," Musa said lowering her voice. "You don't want to protect me, you want to make me someone I'm not. And protect me from what? The scary ladies in ball gowns? I think I can handle myself,"

"You have no idea how horrible things can turn when you do things like date beneath you," Galiena adjusted her position in her seat as if the whole subject was making her uncomfortable. "You see everything with rose colored glasses, but it isn't as simple as falling in love with someone no matter his rank. There is a reason I warned your father about marrying beneath him, the world you live in can tear relationships apart and leave you alone and miserable if you aren't careful!"

"Oh and you would know," Musa said rolling her eyes and crossing her arms as she leaned back in her chair. "You are like palace Barbie… well like her grandma, but still. If I am going to take advice about this, it definitely won't be from you,"

"You'd be surprised what I've gone through," Galiena said in a hard tone. She then stood up and politely put down her napkin and put on her sunglasses. "I expect to see you at the ball,"

Musa sat there absolutely astonished. It was normally her to storm out of a room after an argument with her aunt. And what her aunt had said and the things she had left out spoke volumes. What did she mean that she had been through things that she couldn't comprehend? Musa had a hard time picturing her aunt with some guy that wasn't a prince let alone being heartbroken when it didn't work out. Maybe she had said it to make Musa feel bad about yelling at her. Whatever the reason was, it got Musa thinking.

She didn't want to be thinking the subject of marriage any time soon, but would it come down to her having to listen to her family for protect herself from whatever Galiena was talking about? Musa sat there contemplating it for a few minutes before getting up herself and walking out of the restaurant herself. That was a more than eventful lunch.

* * *

She decided to walk back to Alfea instead of take the bus; she could use the time to think about what she was going to do. What her aunt had said was getting to her and she didn't know why. It wasn't like she was in a relationship with anyone, so why did it matter so much to her right now? She continued to walk along the streets of Magix and she hardly took notice to the things around her. It was like the bustling city wasn't there, she was so lost in her own thoughts she might as well have been in a cave, she probably wouldn't have noticed.

Her lack of attention to what was going on led to what happened next, and looking back at it, Musa would have found this to be comical, but now she was just annoyed. Musa was making her way through the city when she heard someone say something to her. "You know it's not very polite to ignore people, you'd think that a princess would know that…"

Musa looked up to see Riven standing in front of her with that same smirk that made her stomach to back flips. She could only guess that he had said some snide comment to her and she was to preoocupied with her thoughts to notice. Musa had no idea why but staring up at the man that made her question even the most stable of relationships that she had, still made her pulse quicken and her heart skip a beat. Musa had to remind herself of everything he had done so she wouldn't be so taken by him. But even though it didn't show, she was taken by him. And for the life of her she couldn't figure out why. "I wasn't polite to you was I? Oh well I think I'll live if you don't like me," Musa spat out when she finally found her voice.

"Why do I have a hard time believing that," Riven said inching close to Musa until he was dangerously close to her face, he had even bent a bit just to get to eye level with her. His smirk on his face grown which clearly meant that he was enjoying messing with her mind, but Musa would not let him get the satisfaction of knowing he had an effect on her, even if he did still make her knees weak.

"I dunno, maybe you're just stupid," Musa said just keeping the desire out of her voice. Why couldn't he just like her and not be a backstabbing jackass! As if she hadn't had enough of them in her life. She knew she shouldn't indulge him in a back fourth conversation, but she couldn't help but take the bait, she was getting angrier by the second. "I mean all signs point to that now don't they,"

"Ouch, I'm being civil so why can't you be," Riven asked in the same annoyingly innocent tone, but with the smirk that Musa couldn't look away from. "I thought we were friends,"

"Cut the crap and leave me alone," Musa said as she began to walk away only to be followed by Riven. It was clear that he was trying to get a reaction out of her, but Musa needed to stay away. She knew a part of her was enjoying the attention from him, she had wanted so bad for so long, but she refused to acknowledge it. He was bad and that was all that mattered.

"Hey, hey, hey," Riven cooed pulling her back close to him as if he could tell that he was having some type of effect on her. "Come on, let's talk. You know you miss me,"

"Actually, not so much. Leave me alone," Musa said firmly looking him dead in the eye and seeing nothing. Like she was looking into the eyes of a porcelain doll.

"I think that maybe you like it," Riven said not moving any further away from her. Inside he put his hand on the side of her face mocking tenderness. "Maybe you want me around, admit it Musa, I'm having some effect on you," he said in the same vain voice she was used but this time she saw his eyes finally come alive. It was as if something had shaken him awake all of a sudden since the last time she saw him he was a practical zombie. Musa hadn't even thought of the possibility that it was her stirring up feelings inside of him and it was her that he truly wanted.

"And I think that maybe you're full of it," Musa said her tone becoming bitchy and mean. She then clenched her jaw as she pushed his hand off her face. If he wanted to play with fire, she would make sure he got burned. Even though she still felt very strongly for him, she couldn't just overlook the fact that he had betrayed everyone that had been close to him and be had chosen the side of evil. Not to mention he had no problem helping Darcy and her psycho sisters along with half the witches at Cloud tower to ambush her. "No, I'm pretty sure you're full of it,"

"I don't understand why you're being so mean," Riven put his hand on his chest as if Musa were hurting him and began to mock Musa further, after noticing that he was getting on Musa's nerves. "I mean you're starting to hurt my feelings,"

"That's not all I'll hurt if you don't get your hands off of me," Musa warned trying to pull her wrist out of Riven's grasp, unfortunately the fallen hero had a firm grip on her wrist and Musa could only struggle under his power.

"Excuse me miss," Musa looked away from Riven to see that a random guy had actually some to her aid. He looked like he probably went to Red Fountain since he looked like he was a teenager and he was standing up for her so he obviously had some training in chivalry. "Is this guy giving you trouble?"

Musa couldn't help but smile at this guy who was standing there, he had the same dark hair as Musa and a pair of soft honey eyes that reminded her of Stella's, just less intense. (**3) **He seemed sweet and Musa liked the attention from someone else, who wasn't trying to hurt her. "Oh trust me," Musa said confidently as she quickly pulled her wrist away from Riven's hold and gave him a stare that made it look like she pitied him and by . "I can handle this one," The guy nodded and then began back on his way.

"Well go ahead Musa," Riven said pulling her back close to him, it seemed like he wasn't the least bit phased by the fact that someone else had injected because they were worried about Musa's well being. He had let go of her wrist and instead put his arm around her waist and then moved his mouth to her ear and whispering the rest. "Handle me,"

Musa's heart was racing at the close proximity she was with Riven. She could feel his hot breath on her neck and it was so obvious that he was trying to get her to break, but she wouldn't let him win. But, she couldn't deny how excited he got her or how he could fill her with desire by simply putting her close. "Or better yet, I'll handle you," He finished with a smirk.

"Please Riven, better men than you have tried and failed," Musa said confidently a she pushed him away and rewarded him with a hard slap across his face. She seriously doubted Riven did this with all the girls he had ever met so there had to be something about her that he found intriguing had to still have some type of feelings towards her, if he had any feeling left in him at all. But, that was a good reference point if she wanted to hit a nerve, since all of her efforts so far seemed to be fruitless. Not to mention that he had a girlfriend! Sure Musa was no fan of Darcy, but she was sure that the witch wouldn't be too happy to see her boyfriend all over someone else. Besides, Musa knew how it felt when someone was being deceitful. "So there's no way Darcy's little lap dog could do it,"

"I think you'd be surprised," Riven continued not at all phased my Musa's insults. "Pleasantly surprised. And it seems like you know you would,"

Musa looked to see the monster he had become, there was a time she had thought that Riven's rude behavior was just a cover for something else going on in his life, but now she saw the real person underneath all of it. She almost felt pity for him since he had lost the trust and friendship from some of the noblest guys at Red Fountain. "You should scurry back to your master, I mean she must be so worried, her puppy dog doesn't even have his leash on right now,"

By the look on Riven's face, it looked like Musa had finally stuck a nerve and now that she did, she could finally get the upper hand in this little confrontation, if you could call it that. "I mean seriously Riven, someone so high strung like you is letting someone else make all the decisions. It's interesting that's all,"

"Aww, it's cute how you think you kno-,"

Musa kept going, knowing Riven would only slow down her verbal attacks. "Seriously Riven, I am trying to figure out just why you are so messed up. Ditching the only people that made you look good or hanging out with someone who's probably going to get you killed. What's wrong hmm…? Mommy didn't hug you enough?" Little did Musa know that she had hit the nail straight on the head and for the first time since he had began dating Darcy, Musa saw emotion finally lit up in his eyes, only for a brief second.

Riven remained silent, there was nothing he could say. He was finally seeing all the bridges that he had burned and it looked like there was no way of rebuilding them, suddenly a sharp pain came across his chest and stopped any attempt at a retort back.

This sort of thing had happened before when Musa got too angry at someone, she would continue to drill into someone until they were left feeling the way she was. It was hardly a good way to deal with problems, but it was one good way to get everything off your chest. Musa stopped herself for a second before starting again, she was sure she never wanted to see his despicable face ever again, even if she was strangely attracted to him.

She began to walk away angrily and finally Riven made no attempt to stop her. But, when she got a few more steps away from him she figured she could finally get Riven to leave her alone, which was the one thing that she really needed the most. "And Riven, you are no where near good enough to even talk to me, so next time you're about to run into me, keep walking,"

Musa kept walking through Magix not sure how she was feeling. She had so much to think about and she still couldn't get over the fact that she felt something towards Riven. He had just acted like a complete ass and she still felt an attraction. _What is wrong with me! _How could she possibly feel anything but hate for him, he had done everything possible to push her away, he betrayed everyone, and now he was harassing her. God she needed her head examined.

* * *

And what was worse was that this was just one of the problems that had piled up today. Aside from getting back to Alfea to study for a quiz that decided her fate, she had to plot against a backstabbing friend, find a way to get over a guy that was all wrong for her, and try to get out of going to the ball where she would most likely see the latest guy that was all wrong for her. But, she figured that it could be worse, she could be a pumpkin.

That night, when Musa returned from her meeting with her aunt and the run in with Riven, Bloom and the girls were sitting around the coffee table in the common room looking at an envelope that Bloom had found in the hallway after bumping into Professor Wizgiz. Stella was about to ask Musa about the lunch, but when she saw the label on the evenlpe she became more interested in that. "Okay, I'll say it. I think this is a golden opportunity. And I'm sure we can make it up later with good deeds or something. So I'm gonna open it," Stella reached for the envelope that sat in the center of the table before Musa stopped her.

"Stella don't!" Musa scolded. The envelope held the answers to the quiz that they were all going to take the next day, the one that even Stella had been stressing about. "We don't need to cheat, I mean come on we studied and I let you use all my notes. We'll be fine for the quiz,"

"If professor finds out you cheated then you will definitely get kicked out of school," Techna reminded. The consequences were steep, but still it was worth considering.

"Yeah well I'm gonna get thrown out anyway," Stella said as she put her face in her hands frustrated. "When I bomb the test,"

"Yeah but think about your conscious," Flora said as the voice of reason once again. But, while they were debating with Stella, Musa was thinking about opening the envelope. She would have to be stupid not to, the test was incredibly important and if they bombed it then they would get kicked out. Stella did have a point and if they cheated then they had a chance at not getting caught. She could just study for the rest of the night, but Musa knew that she wouldn't be able to concentrate, with everything that happened today, it would be hard for her to concentrate.

"My conscious just wants me to get a good grade!"

"This is bunk, Bloom," Musa said lashing out at the only person she could think of. But., it was the only thing worse than not deciding to use it or not would be if they didn't use it and get caught with it anyway. "You should have left that envelope in the hallway where you found it. Not only is it too much temptation, we could get busted for just having it here."

"You're right, I know," Bloom agreed. "What should we do about it?"

"Okay I got it! What we'll do is only read the questions, that way it' not cheating," Stella said proudly as if she had just found the cure to a epidemic disease. She must of known that it was just as bad as reading the answers, but it was clear that she was desperate and this was a way out.

"Oh come on Stella! How is reading the questions not cheating!" Flora scolded.

"Forget this, I'm hitting the books," Musa decided and yawned. She knew that there was an all nighter staring her in the face, but she did want to get some sleep. She figured she could buckle down for a few hours and get some actual work done, but she was still running the entire afternoon through her head a million times. "And then hitting the hay,"

* * *

Musa walked into her room and set out a bunch of her books onto her bed. She began to read the third chapter in her transformations book when she heard a ring coming from her phone. Musa looked around her room for a few seconds and couldn't seem to find it. "Ugh, you can't be serious," Musa said to herself as she stood up and began to follow the sound around her room. Finally, she found the phone right before the person calling her could hang up. "Hello,"

"Hey, got your text," Annabelle said. Musa had sent her a text asking if she was also going to be going to the charity ball in a few days, since she was still decideing if she should go or not. She didn't want to go and if it was completely up to her, she wouldn't. But, she knew not going would be a major slap in the face to her aunt, who basically had a melt down of her own at lunch and Musa was not sure she wanted to be pushing the envelope this much when it came it pissing her off. "I'm not going,"

"Seriously…." Musa was disappointed to say the least. She figured it wouldn't be too bad if someone she could talk to would be there, but she wasn't going to be too comfortable if she was there alone, or worse if she was there alone and her aunt set her up with someone. "Crap, and my aunt had like this crazy melt down at lunch, so I think I have to show up to this one,"

"Melt down?"

"Yeah she went on this huge rant about how she is truly trying to help me," Musa began as she recalled the bizarre turn of events at lunch. "Then she was like ' you have no idea the things I've been through and I am trying to protect you from the same thing happening to you' It was really weird, I mean there is probably some secret part of her past nobody know," Musa said still unable to grasp that her aunt might have a huge secret. She was sure she had some, but not a big one that caused her to flip out like she had at lunch. "So I kinda want to avoid that happening again,"

"Sorry, but you know you don't have to be there too long," Annabelle added trying to make Musa feel better. "And why don't you bring someone there. A cute red fountain boy perhaps…what about that one that you liked – ,"

"No," Musa quickly cut her off before she could finish. She knew who Annabelle was getting at and that was definitely not going happen. While Bloom and the girls knew why Musa wanted nothing to do with Riven, the twins and Leslie only knew that he was a jerk. And since Musa hadn't brought him up for awhile, they thought maybe things had blown over and maybe she was back to liking him, even though she never really stopped. "Don't even start with that,"

"Sore subject?"

"You already know it is," Musa quipped. She knew she had explained how infuriating Riven could be to her friends. But she was still so angry about today, mostly at herself for liking him, but at him as well. How could he even live with himself knowing everything he had done. "I can't believe that guy, he's such a – a – a… I don't know! I just really hate him!"

"Sounds to me like the opposite is true," Annabelle pointed out knowing she was only going to further upset Musa. But this was so grade school, girls and boys acted like they hated each other when they actually liked each other. "Before you yell, think about it,"

"It doesn't matter," Musa said giving herself no time to think about what she had just said. She was not going to admit, ever, that she still liked Riven or that he made her heart race by just looking at her. She was so embarrassed about her feelings and there was no way that she was going to admit them. "He's the biggest ass in the universe, you won't even believe what he did,"

"I'm sure I will," Annabelle asserted. "So…what did he do?"

Normally Musa would have just given her a quick synopsis of what happened. Something like 'I saw him and he was rude and that's it'. But for some reason he had really gotten under he skin today and she had no one else to turn to. She could tell Stella or Flora about it, but she knew that they would bring up the chance that she still liked him and she didn't want to put herself in that predicament. Not to mention telling Annabelle was like fool proof. She wasn't a big gossip like her sister so Musa didn't have to worry about word getting out and she wasn't going to get on her high horse and give her advice like Leslie. She would be a good listener which was exactly what Musa needed.

"Well, I think you acted admirably," Annabelle said after Musa finished her twenty minute testimonial on the event and her thoughts. "I would have kicked him in the groin instead of the slap, but hey we all have different styles. Main thing is, now he knows to leave you alone. That's what you want right?"

No, Musa wanted a lot of things, but that wasn't it. She didn't want Riven to act that way, she didn't want him to be the person he had become over the past few months. She wanted him to be the guy that had rudely yet generously, given her a ride back to Alfea when she got caught in the rain when she had wondered into the enchanted forest. She wanted the Riven that had sniped at her and her friends during their time in the swamp, she would take him over this new, zombie Riven any day.

"Yeah," Musa said to Annabelle after a pause. "That's what I want,"

"Good, now be that assertive attitude when William tries to feel you up at the ball,"

"Not funny," Musa complained forgetting all about the ball for a second. It was the one thing that she really needed to make a decision on, but she really didn't want to go. "I'm not going,"

"Going where?" Asked a new voice. When Musa looked up she found that the voice belonged to the Princess of Solaria. She had walked in with a few books, probably after a few failed attempts at trying to get the envelope. "Oh sorry didn't know you were on the phone. I'm just gonna sit here and – yea,"

"Just go, we both know you will anyway and report back," Annabelle commanded. "I'll let you study, Don't want to get you kicked out of Alfea….or do I?"

* * *

"Okay, bye Anna," Musa hung up the phone and walked over to Stella and pulled out some flash cards that she could use to quiz herself on some spells that she needed. "You know, if we quiz each other on every other chapter we can probably get a lot more material covered by morning," Musa suggested.

"So where aren't you going," Stella asked, slamming a book closed and focusing her energy on Musa. "And how did lunch go with you aunt and is one related to the other, I mean this wouldn't be the first time she forced you to do something you didn't want to do, right?" Stella said in one breathe, leaving Musa very impressed and a little confused.

"Lunch was interesting," Musa said honestly mentally checking off that question from the list of questions Stella had just fired at her. "And she wants me to go to some charity ball in a few days, and I really don't wanna go,"

"A ball! How fun, why wouldn't you wanna go?" Stella asked proving that she was the exact opposite of Musa. While she thought balls and galas were fun, Musa had grown to dread them. "You have to go!"

"I dunno, it's not really the biggest thing on my agenda right now,"

"It should be,"

"You sound like my aunt,"

"She's a smart lady," Stella demanded. "Come on it could be fun, I'll come with and I'm sure the girls would be free too. You should go, you're the one who said that you needed to make peace with your aunt earlier today. This would be the perfect way to do that,"

"Daniel is gonna be there," Musa said as she crossed her arms around her chest, sure that she had given Stella the one reason that would get her out of going to the ball.

"Even more reason to go!" Stella exclaimed happily. "You have to go and you have to look amazing! You can totally make him jealous and make him regret even looking at someone else! Come on you have to!"

The back and fourth went on between Musa and Stella for another hour or so before Musa told Stella that they were either going to study or Stella was going to have to leave the room. They finally got down to studying, but Musa ended up falling asleep on her desk and Stella fell asleep across the room with her book in her face.

Hours later, Musa was woken up by the sound of her door flying open and a frantic Stella yelling. "Griselda was just here! She just sent Bloom to Faragonda's office to talk about answers to questions," Stella said running into Musa's room and interrupting her conversation with Annabelle. "We're so busted,"

They bombarded her with questions about what happened in Ms. Faragonda's office, scared that they were all going to be expelled from the school. But, Bloom had different news to share. "I had nothing to do with the envelope, it was about my sleeping in class. They didn't even know about the envelope or the answers,"

"Really, so what should we do about the envelope now?" Musa asked once again. Now that they were sure that nobody had any clue about the envelope, they had a better opportunity; they wouldn't get caught nearly as easily as they thought.

"Start studying because we're going to pretend that it doesn't exist," It was probably the best idea since they had already been studying for awhile and the they probably knew more material than they thought, plus the chance of getting caught would be a distraction either way.

The rest of the night consisted of fighting temptation, something Musa had become rather acquainted to in the past months. Bloom and the girls had decided to hide the answers in the kitchen so that none of the girls could access it. But, in the middle of the night they had all succumb to the temptation of cheating and they all stumbled upon each other trying to get the envelope for themselves.

Not that it mattered, after they all decided not to look, they went to bed. The next morning Professor Wizgiz told them that the envelopes were all a test and that it was just ploys to see who would cheat and who wouldn't. Clever, but Musa was not at all amused since she had actually stressed and studied for the test.

But for now, it was nice to not have to worry about much.

* * *

_1. This is actually true. There are some diplomatic vehicals that don't have to obey traffic laws if they display their diplomatic flags. I mean they can't do anything crazy, but they get good parking…_

_2. A reference to Gilmore Girls, Rory went ot chilton academy for high school _

_3. Hmm... the description of this boy seems to be very similar to the way Jared looks... hahaha i thought he needed a cameo _

_Next up – nightmare monster!_

_xoxo,  
__princessm_

* * *


	16. Nightmare Monster

**Nightmare Monster**

It had been a few days since Musa had seen her aunt in Magix and she had almost forgotten about the whole encounter, until Flora delivered a package to Musa's dorm room. Musa had been in class, so she never got to ask who the package was from, it was unmarked except for her address at Alfea. Musa looked over the brown box and wondered what it was. It was the length of her entire desk, but very thin and very light, marked fragile and sitting on her bed waiting for it to be opened.

Musa looked at the package for a second and thought that maybe it wasn't for her, she wasn't expecting anything and it wasn't marked by any specific person, so she wasn't sure what it was. But, with her curiosity getting the best of her, she grabbed a pair of scissors and tore through the tape on the sides of the box. Then she lifted the top to see a smaller, nicer looking box laying inside the first on. It was a dress box and Musa all of a sudden knew exactly who it was from.

She lifted the top and opened the box to see a gorgeous gown lying inside. It was strapless with a tight corset top that was intricately designed with simmering blue and white beads and the bottom of the dress flared outward to look almost like a wedding gown, but it's deep blue color that was paired with white beads made it look like a ball gown. It also had a pair of shoes in a separate box inside the initial box. The shoes matched perfectly and the outfit it made was spectacular. Laying on the dress was a note from Musa's aunt.

_I am not saying you have to wear the dress, but it is beautiful and I think you would look lovely in it. _

_- Aunt Galiena _

The note wasn't demanding at all, which was odd since her aunt was the kind of person to hold a gun to your head to get you into a gown and to a ball on time. And she had felt a stab of guilt when she thought back to lunch because it looked like Galiena was making an honest effort to try to make things right, or at least smooth things over. But still, her mind was made up and there was no changing it now

Musa would have stuffed the dress and the shoes in her closet and not given them a second thought, since she had decided going to the ball would be a bad idea. She wasn't ready to see Daniel, although most of her feelings for him had dissolved, the overwhelming urge to kick him in the crotch was still as strong as ever. Also, she didn't want to be set up with some random person that her aunt had found for her, even though it probably would piss Daniel off. And Musa made it half way across the room with the dress in her hand when Stella burst in, near tears, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"I hate boys!" Stella said angrily throwing her phone at the window in a rage. She then plopped herself on Musa's bed and looked at Musa, almost expecting her to say something. Usually, Stella went screaming and hollering to Bloom, since Bloom could actually put up with Stella's crap. But today, Flora and Techna were still working on their big project for a class and Bloom had been a virtual ghost recently. She had something going on about her past and the girls had decided to just let her be until she was ready to talk about it,

"Something bothering you?" Musa asked even though it was obvious that something was by the display that Stella had just put on.

"He was supposed to call me today and he didn't!" Stella exclaimed making no attempt to pick up the phone she had just thrown towards the window. Then, jumping from one category to the next, Stella looked at Musa, who still had the dress in her hand and cocked her head as if she were confused. "Pretty dress,"

"I think Kiko has a longer attention span than you do," Musa pointed out before hanging the dress in the closet and walking back over to Stella. "It's still morning, I'm pretty sure Sky will call you later. You need to calm down, the Stella I know isn't that clingy with a guy,"

"I'm not being clingy, it's just he said he was going to call me in the morning last night and –," Stella began explaining the situation only to stop, stand up from Musa's bed and walk over to the closet Musa was just in. She pulled out the dress that Galiena had just sent for Musa and looked it over once before looking back at Musa. "Is this for that ball, when is it! Oh you'll look so cute in this!"

"Do you have A.D.D or something," Musa said. Stella had just gone from blaring angry to excited in 5 seconds and instead of ranting about Sky she was now fawning over the dress Musa had just put in her closet. "What happened with Sky?" She desperately tried to change the subject back to Sky, but it looked like Stella was too far gone in her newest project.

"I just won't pick up next time he calls," Stella said as she laid the dress on the bed and walked back into the closet and found the shoes that Musa had also hidden in there. She laid those out as well and looked over the dress. "That'll teach him to keep me waiting. Is this from Elizabeth James (**1**)! God I love her designs!"

"Yes, and can we get back to why you are in here?" Musa demanded. She hadn't told Stella that she wasn't going to the ball and she was hoping she could distract her from the topic using her problem with Sky against her. But, Stella was more fickle than she had excepted.

"No," Stella said curtly. She laid the shoes on the bed with the dress and walked over to Musa's jewelry box and pulled out a diamond tennis bracelet that was set in platinum and matching earrings. It was clear that she was not going to be listening to anything. "You're so lucky, Solaria never hosts balls in Magix, I would have to go home to go to them and that is too long of a trip for just one ball,"

"I wouldn't call it lucky," Musa said, she knew Stella loved getting dressed up and going to these kinds of parties and Musa would too if her friends were all attending, but this was a night that was going to suck so she didn't want to go, or even talk about it for that matter. "I'm actually not going so you can put that stuff away,"

Musa walked over to the bed and began to pick up the clothing off her bed, ignoring the look that Stella gave her when she broke the news to her. As she walked her new dress back to the closet where she had put it before, Stella stopped her with a determined look on her face. "You're going," Stella then took the dress out of Musa's hands and placed it back on the bed, as some type of gesture to prove Musa would go.

"We've been through this,"

"Why won't you go! You said yourself that these things are fun,"

"Yeah I said that they are fun when my friends are around," Musa defended. While debating this exact subject with Stella a few nights ago, Musa had admitted that balls and parties were fun, but she was sure to mention that they were only as good as the guest list. "And I am all alone on this one, I don't even have a date. Not to mention Daniel is going to be there and I just can't,"

"Take someone from Red Fountain!" Stella exclaimed excitedly only to be rewarded with a cross look from Musa. She ignored it, Stella wasn't implying she take Riven, but by the look on Musa's face, Musa must have thought that she was. Which begged the question, why was she still thinking about him. "I didn't mean him,"

"Who?" Musa asked pretending not to know who Stella didn't mean to imply. She knew that Stella knew that she thought Stella was talking about Riven, but she wouldn't acknowledge it. And Stella knew as much so she immediately dropped it.

"Why not take this guy I know," Stella said slightly changing the subject. "He is totally cute and sweet. His name is Jared, he's on the Red Fountain paper he's also a star on the soccer team, I think you'd like him…"

"No thanks Stella," Musa stopped her before she could continue. She knew that Bloom and Stella had been trying to find someone for her at Red Fountain ever since they found out that she and Daniel were over. It was a sweet gesture because they wanted to see her happy again, but she really didn't feel like getting into another relationship.

"Fine, but that means you have to go to the ball,"

"How does that mean I have to go to the ball?"

"Because I said so,"

"No," Musa said standing firm on her decision. "I am not going alone,"

"Fine then, Bloom and I will go with you, I know that we are both free tonight!" Stella proposed. "You said you don't mind going if your friends are there, so we'll be there. I'll ask Techna and Flora if they wanna go. And now you can't no,"

"Fine, but you'll see that these things are no fun," Musa said stubbornly.

"Yeah okay, now you should start getting ready, it's already late in the afternoon!" Stella said excitedly as she walked out of the room to go find her outfit for the night.

* * *

"So have fun tonight," Techna said as she packed her laptop in to her bag and got ready to go to her lab partner's dorm room and work on their potions lab. She and Flora were both unable to go to the ball with them since Techna had a lab to finish and Flora had an extra credit assignment in defense against the dark arts class. She was doing alright in the subject, but she needed help in putting up barriers that protected against dark magic.

"I don't even think that's possible," Musa complained as she put the diamond earrings that Stella had picked out for her, on her ears. She then stood in front of the mirror and gave a deep sigh. She looked nice, Stella had curled her hair in loose waves and then pulled some back in an elegant fashion, the dress fit perfectly and the jewelry matched perfectly, but all she could feel was anxiety. She was beginning to realize just how much she had missed Daniel and there was no way she wanted him to see that in her face. "I just want the night to be over with, we'll probably skip out early,"

"Well, if you do, call me," Techna suggested. She was walking around the room picking up a few things that she needed for the paper, textbooks and a calculator, things like that. "Flora said she'll be done in an hour or so, and when I'm finished we could all go to a late movie or something,"

"That actually sounds great," Musa's sad expression had now been replaced with a happier one at the thought of not only leaving the ball early, but having some tonight. The girls hadn't had any real time for fun together. There was so much school work not to mention any free time that Techna, Bloom or Stella had went to flirting with their respective Red Fountain boys, which was always a bit of a sore subject for Musa ever since Darcy and Riven got together. "I'll call you guys and we'll meet at the theater,"

"I suggest you take a change of clothes," Techna said finally as she walked out the door. "I'll see you girls tonight and try to have some fun!"

"Now that sounds like a plan," Stella walked in just as Techna walked out of the dorn room. She was dressed in a light pink satin ball gown. Her hair had been done up in a bun with some random strands of hair falling from the bun that were curled. "You look amazing! This is going to be so fun!"

"Yeah Musa," Bloom said walking in, ready for the ball as well. "Stella told me you weren't looking forward to this! Granted I've never been to one of these things before, but Stella kind of filled me in one some of the manner and stuff like that, but it sounds like a lot of fun! And seeing Daniel again will give him a chance to eat his heart out!"

"I see you've been hanging around Stella too much,"

"I'm just going to take that as a compliment," Stella said as they walked out of the school and out to the quad where there was a limo waiting for them, as expected. Musa knew that there would be one even if she had decided not to go, it was all a part of her aunt's gentle persuasion. "Okay let's go girls," Musa said, the driver came out and took their bags, the ones with their change of clothes, and put them in the trunk and then the girls got into the car.

"Oh look whose calling!" Stella said excitedly as she gazed at the screen of her cell phone. They had finally arrived in Magix, they were in the center of the city were most of the upscale shops and hotels were. As the girls got out of the limo, the took the opportunity to look at the city lit up in the night. "Sky of coarse, I think I'll keep ignoring his calls until we get inside, and then I'll pick up,"

"Stella, you won't be able to hear him inside, everyone will be talking and music is going to be playing. Granted it will probably be the waltz, but still it's kinda loud," Musa pointed out. She knew Stella had been ignoring Sky's phone calls all day because he didn't call in the morning as he promised her would, Musa found it immature, but funny all the same.

"Yeah, so Sky will know that I am out having fun without him," Stella said cheekily as the girls walked in. "And then he'll be the vulnerable one, and I win,"

"I didn't realize a game," Bloom said as she handed her coat off to one of the men dressed in the tuxedo behind the coat room counter. She then took note of the beautiful place that the ball was being held in. "Wow this place is amazing,"

"Oh it's a game and I'm winning!" Stella said, not that Musa was paying attention. She was too busy scanning the lobby for anyone that she knew. Everyone was mingling amongst each other and the fact was that she had seen many of these people before and if she didn't quickly go to the ballroom and take her seat, then she would be pulled into saying hello to everyone she had ever met.

"Hey, let's go to the ballroom and grab our seats," Musa said bypassing everyone in the lobby and going straight to the ballroom as Bloom and Stella followed.

"Yeah okay,"

"Musa!" A rather loud voice shouted right before the trio could make it to their table and take their seats. Usually, when people were standing others felt more open to speak to them. Musa turned to see a random lady that she could vaguely remember coming towards her. "Oh Musa, I haven't seen you in years, how are you?"

"Oh hi," Musa said acting like she knew the person. She was an older woman, probably in her mid to late forties, but had work done to look like she was in her early thirties. She had strawberry blond hair and a squeaky little voice. That was when it hit her, she was Amber Riley, William's mother. "So nice to see you again, these are my friends, Stella and Bloom," Stella and Bloom politely shook her hand as she quickly resumed the cordial meeting.

"Oh lovely to see you, and nice to meet you girls," Duchess Riley said politely. "My son William is here somewhere. You two should talk! Heaven knows how long it's been since you two have seen each other"

"Of course, I will definitely find him later, " Musa said trying to put on her best fake smile. Usually when something like this happened, Annabelle or Isabelle would rush over and say that Musa needed to say hello to someone she hadn't seen in years and they would slip away. Unfortunately, Stella and Bloom didn't know the routine. "Well it was great seeing you, I should go say hello to my aunt, but hopefully I'll see you later,"

"Oh I hope so," Duchess Riley said in a tone that made Musa know that she and Galiena wanted to set her and William up. With a smile Musa quickly ushered the girls away and they took their spots at one of the head tables.

"These boys are so cute," Stella said when they finally sat down. She took a sip of her water and looked around. There were a lot of guys dressed formally with manners and royal pedigrees; in short it was Stella's dream come true. "So which one of these guys is William and why haven't we found out about him?"

"Oh is he the reason you didn't want to be set up with anyone?" Stella asked getting excited once again.

"Trust me, that is definitely not why I didn't want to bring someone," Musa said. "I just don't want to date anyone right now, so let's just drop it,"

"Fine, it's dropped," Bloom said giving Stella a hard look. "So what goes on at these things, I mean it's all so fairy tale like." Bloom was clearly mesmerized by the entire affair. It did look like one of those stereotypical affairs that fairy tale books depicted with sparking lights and soft music.

"It will start with whoever threw this party making a quick speech about how happy they are to see everyone here," Musa began, she had been to enough of these to now the agenda by heart. "Then, the music will start and the honored guests will start to dance along with the guests of honor. Then everyone else joins in. After that, the music keeps going and everyone had dinner and talks and then we all go home,"

Even though Musa described it as blandly as she could, Bloom and Stella still seemed pretty excited about the whole thing. The three talked for a bit and snacked on some of the orderves, which were one of the few redeemers of the party. The food was always really good. They then sat through the speech that the hospital head chair made, encouraging everyone to take part in caring for those less fortunate. It was pretty funny since if they wanted to care for those less fortunate, then they might want to throw them a part with this great food instead of eating themselves and basking in their own wealth.

"Ooh! Look who's calling," Stella said minutes after the hospital chair thanked everyone for coming and took his seat back at the head of the table, where Galiena was seated as well. Musa still hadn't greeted her aunt yet since things got really weird at lunch a few days ago, but she needed to say hello since she had dragged herself here, she was going to get the proper credit for coming her that she deserved. Musa then looked to Stella as she looked at the phone's screen. "It looks like Sky misses me, I think I should tell him that I'm a bit busy at this fabulous ball,"

"You are a child," Bloom teased as Stella stood up and walked away from the table to the lobby so that she could maybe hear Sky, but she made sure to stand close to the ballroom so that he could hear the background noise. "So what can we do to get you that excited?"

"Depends, how much alcohol are you ready to see me consume?" Musa said in a tone matching Bloom's. She had managed to lighten up and even start having fun. She enjoyed hanging out with her friends; even Stella became tolerable after awhile. "I'm looking forward to getting out of this dress and seeing that movie,"

"Yeah, me too," Bloom agreed and then looked over Musa's shoulder to see someone every handsome approaching. "Hey some guy is coming up right behind you, I think he wants to talk to you,"

Musa didn't have much time to think before she heard her name and turned to see William standing above her with that toothpaste commercial smile. "Oh hey William," Musa said with the same faux enthusiasm that she used with his mother. He wasn't bad looking at all, he was tall, strawberry blond and he was pretty well toned. Not to mention a killer smile, Musa had fallen under his spell once, but after talking to him for ten minute she quickly snapped herself back to reality. "How are you," Musa asked standing up and giving him a quick, uncomfortable hug.

"Good, how are you?" He asked politely as he flashed that amazing smile of his.

"Good,"

"So I was wondering, if you would honor me with a Waltz," William said offering his hand to the princess. Musa wanted to say no and walk away, but that would be rude. She was going to find some way out of it, but she then she remembered how much her aunt would love to see her dancing with William. Galiena was sitting at the head table so if Musa did dance with him, she would probably see and that would probably keep her off of Musa's back for the next few months.

"I would love to," Musa said politely, trying to sound as interested as William was. She didn't know if he was genuinely interested in her or if he was just doing this for his parents, but he seemed pretty eager. More than that he seemed eager to do whatever his parents wanted him to do, it was like he was a robot that did whatever he was told and liked it. It was the one thing Musa feared the most, if she ever felt herself loosing the slightest bit of her free will she was very apt to speak up.

William guided her out onto the dance floor to join the other couples as they floated across the shining floor. Musa began to dance without a second thought, it was like second nature to her and even though William was talking to her, she wasn't exactly listening. She picked up on a few things, like when he called her beautiful and she couldn't help but blush. He was rather charming.

Musa paid close attention to the clock hanging in the corner and every time the waltz allowed her to get a good look at the clock, she would estimate how much longer she was obligated to stay. She figured that the waltz would last a few more minutes and she would dance the next dance with William as well and then leave. That way everyone was happy, William, her aunt and Musa could leave. She was actually enjoying herself, the dance with William aside. Bloom and Stella had come up with the game 'Mistress, Daughter or second wife' that focused around guessing who an old guy was escorting to these events. But, the chance of seeing Daniel was still looming and she didn't want to see him right now, or any time soon for that matter.

Every now and then she would do a quick scan of the room looking for him, but she couldn't see him, maybe he wasn't here. She did happen to catch the eyes of her aunt, who seemed to be beaming with excitement as she watched William guide Musa around the dance floor. Musa figured it was what she owed her that since she acted very inappropriately back at the restaurant, besides she knew the best way to deal with her aunt was to indulge her a bit and she would usually be okay for awhile.

"So, that was when I suggested we go yachting," Musa's mind was in a million places, but dancing on the dance floor with William was not one of them. She occasionally drifted back and caught a few things. "I mean it's crazy, nobody had thought of that, in the middle of the summer…" he went on as Musa pretended that hearing about his yachting trip was not mind numbingly boring.

Musa looked around the room once again as William took her into a quick spin and noticed that her friends were not sitting at the table, instead they were dancing along with her. Well not with her, but they had their respective partners and they were dancing around with them. "Hey do you know the guy that is dancing with my friends?"

"Oh yeah, one is a prince and the other is a duke," William asked thinking that he had answered the question. Musa was actually looking for a name, but of coarse, instead she got their rank. Not that she should have been expecting much more.

* * *

Once the waltz ended, Musa thanked William for the dance and began to walk off the dance floor only to be stopped by him. He asked if she wanted to hang out later, since his family was invited to some event at Red Fountain Musa had never even heard of. (**2**) Musa said that she wasn't going to be able to make it and then she had to turn down his offer to 'get outta there' and hang out with him alone in his hotel suite, or hit Kinkel bar (**3) **for some drinks. She told him that she had to make it back to Alfea before curfew and got away from him as quick as possible.

"What a creeper," Musa mumbled as she walked back up to Stella and Bloom who were waiting for her by the doors that led to the lobby. Stella and Bloom had come back from their dances with the prince and his friend. It was cute that they all managed to find someone here that they didn't want.

"Ready to go?" Stella asked almost regretfully. She was having fun here, but she knew that Musa was ready to leave and she was looking forward to hanging out with her girls since they hadn't had much time in the past couple of weeks to hang out. Bloom, who had never attended an even like this, seemed to be having a lot of fun as well.

"So ready," Musa said. The three began making their way through the lobby when they heard a loud shout from the other end. Standing by the doors to the ballroom was Nate, by himself, looking as if he had just run to catch up to them. At first Musa looked at him in totally surprise, the only person she was expecting to see here was Daniel and she hadn't seen him all night. "Oh my gosh! Nate!"

Musa ran to him and jumped into his arms, as lady like as possible, but it was hard for her to contain her excitement. She hadn't seen him since spring break and talking to him was rare, it was like Daniel got custody of him in their split. But, the weird thing was that she knew that Daniel still got to hang out with the girls, but she didn't get to see Nate as much. It wasn't fair. "I didn't know you were coming!"

"It was kinda last minute, I got roped into it," Nate said his voice muffled by Musa's hair as Musa was still embracing her best friend. "Hey Stella, Bloom it's nice to see you guys again,"

"Hey Nate, how are you," Bloom asked before Stella could say anything, she knew that if Stella got the opportunity to, she would have said something to make everyone uncomfortable. She had a gift for those types of situations.

"Good how about you guys,"

"Good, so when did you get here," Stella asked since she was swiftly stopped last time by Bloom.

"I just got here today, I was gonna come by and visit you guys, but I was a little busy,"

"With?" Musa knew who it was with and she figured Daniel was the one who had roped Nate into coming to the event. But, if they were both here, they both knew not to arrive together and give off the wrong image, so Leslie must have been here too! "Wait is Leslie here!"

"No, she couldn't come so I had to come here alone,"

"Why didn't you call me or come see me!" Musa asked angrily. She had missed them so much and now they were in the same ballroom together. She was admittedly a little jealous that Daniel got to see them all the time while she hardly got to see them. "We could have gone together; it would have saved me the therapy I'm going to need after dancing with William Riley,"

"Well, I don't think that would have been the best idea," Nate looked as if he had just become very uncomfortable and it was because nether of them had broached the subject of Daniel and even though Musa was sure that he was probably here avoiding her, she wasn't sure.

"And why not," Musa asked hoping to get Nate to come out with the truth. But, he didn't say anything, instead he gave her hard look. This wasn't the time or place to be talking about these things, but still Musa wanted to know. "You don't have to cover for him, I figured he was here and it makes sense that he dragged you here."

"He wants to talk to you, but it's only been like two hours and you've managed to keep a low profile," Nate said. It was true that Musa had been hiding out at her table with Stella and bloom for the two short hours that they were here, but if Daniel really needed to talk then he could have asked around to see if Musa was there. "I think you should talk to him,"

"I got in my first cat fight," Musa said somewhat proudly, totally bypassing what he had just said. She didn't want to talk to him right now, which was why she had been hiding out the entire night. Besides, she hadn't told him about it, maybe he had heard it from the twins or Leslie, since she had filled them in on

"And won," Stella added.

"How proud are you?" Musa asked.

"Are you okay?" Nate asked with concern. It was not the reaction Musa wanted "Well obviously you're okay. Was it an actual physical confrontation? Musa that is not –."

"Okay, enough before the lecturing begins," Musa begged. "It was not big deal,"

"Yeah, okay," Nate said in a disappointed tone. Just then a door from the end of the lobby opened loudly.

"Hey bro, that chick from earlier is looking for you, just thought I'd give you a heads up and –," Daniel had just walked through the same doors Nate was standing at earlier, he was busy texting on his phone so he didn't exactly notice Musa until she paused his head to see her standing in front of him. "Hey," Was all he could spit out after a few seconds of him and Musa just looking at each other.

"Wow is that a statue!" Bloom exclaimed looking outside. "We should check that out," It was clear that Bloom was dismissing herself as well as Stella and Nate. But no matter how deliberate it was, all three walked outside to tone down the level of awkwardness that had accumulated in the last thirty seconds. "Come, let's go!"

"You know it is," Nate said sounding very interested in the marble fish fountain. As they all walked out of the hotel.

Musa and Daniel stood looking at each other for a few seconds before Musa finally spoke up. "Hi," Musa said after another few seconds of silence between them.

"So how are you," Daniel asked. It was obvious that he wanted to see her and that he felt bad about everything that happened, but Musa was not going to let him just feel better about everything so quickly. She really didn't feel so bad or angry at him anymore, but for some reason she would not let this go, which was not unreasonable of her since he cheated, but the idea of him with someone else didn't bother her as much anymore.

"Fine," Musa said. They stood there for a few more seconds before Musa looked at him again and realized that nothing had changed. Daniel knew that cheating was wrong and he apologized for it, but it gave Musa no comfort. She wasn't angry about that and until Daniel really understood, she didn't want to be around him. "I have to be somewhere, so I should -,"

"Don't be like that, please," Daniel said stopping her mid- sentence. "You're my best friend; I can't just not speak to you anymore, it's just not right. I know that you're angry and you don't want to speak to me, but just tell me that eventually we'll be okay,"

"I need to go," Musa's face remained as blank as she could keep it, but it was clear that emotions that she never wanted to face were beginning to get stirred up inside of her. But looking at him, she realized the feelings she had for him were gone, there was nothing that attracted her to him anymore and she began to question if there was anything there before. Nothing, it was like he was any one else that she knew, and aside from the anger she still harbored about his betrayal. "Bye Daniel," Musa turned and began walking towards the doors that Stella and Bloom had just exited from, only to be stopped by Daniel's hand taking hold of her wrist.

"I get it Musa, I hurt you and I broke your heart. And I know it still hurts and I –,"

"I don't even have feelings for you anymore!" Musa shot back, for the first time she had finally figured out what exactly was keeping her from seeing Daniel. It was the betrayal itself, it had nothing to do with how it made her feel, it was that he knew he would hurt her and he did it anyway.. "I don't and you can believe me or not, that's up to you. But that is not what this is about; it's not that you hurt me because if you did it by accident it would be another story. But you intentionally betrayed me knowing exactly what you doing and knowing that it was wrong. You knew how much it could ruin things between us and everyone around us! Whether I still have feelings for you or not doesn't matter, you don't get why I'm angry."

"But I –,"

"So you can't fix it," Musa pointed out bluntly. "At least not until you get it,"

Musa wanted to be friends with him again, even though she couldn't really admit to herself just yet. She wanted things to go back to the way they were, but it seemed like it would never happen. She didn't know if she could ever truly fix things or make them as they were, but maybe this was a step. Sure she didn't want to talk to him now, but Daniel was making an effort to rectify the situation and it was a start. "I'm gonna go,"

Musa walked out of the hotel to see Nate, Stella and Bloom all standing next to the limo that had brought them here. "Okay let's change and go," Musa said calmly as she walked up to the three that were deep in conversation, probably about what they thought was going on inside. "I'll see you next time you come to Magix,"

"Definitely," Nate agreed and pulled Musa into a hug. "You okay,"

"I'm fine," Musa nodded and watched her friend walk back into the hotel.

* * *

The girls sat in the limo after they had gotten changed. It was silent in the limo after the two had let Musa and Daniel talk, she insisted that she was fine, but they felt like something was still bothering her. And something was, no matter how hard she tried to fight it, she wanted to forgive him and she wanted him back in her life. "So, what's up girls…is there anything anyone wants to say?" Stella broached in a not so subtle hint that she was hoping that Musa would give them a bit more information about what happened other than the fact that she was fine.

"Look nothing interesting happened," Musa admitted as she looked at Magix at night. It was completely different city and even though it looked completely different, she still felt a lot of comfort from the city for some reason. She began to drift off in thought when she realized she hadn't even finished her story. "I just told him that I needed time before we could talk about everything, I still don't think he really gets why I'm angry,"

"How hard is it to get," Stella asked dumbly, it seemed pretty simple, he cheated. "He cheated on you, so obviously you're going to be upset,"

"It's a little more than that, but I think we still need some time before we can get past this," Musa shrugged. She wanted to believe that they could go on like this never happened, but it was hard. "I mean if we ever do, but come on can we just have fun tonight. I mean we're going to see a movie and have fun!"

"Definitely," Bloom agreed. "But we still haven't figured out what movie to watch. I was hoping we could see Mission Improbable 4, (**4**) this time he has to stop an elite team of assassins from getting the –,"

"Okay no!" Stella complained. "Let's see the movie about that adorable law student that everyone underestimates, but she becomes the best using fashion and other stuff like that!" (**5)**

The limo pulled up to the movie theater and after telling the driver to drop the dresses back off at Alfea and then leave, since the girls were going to simply walk back to Alfea, they waited for Techna and Flora to arrive. "Hey girls! How was the ball," Flora asked as she caught up to the girls along with Techna.

"It was good," Musa answered. "So what movie are we going to watch," This prompted another long debate, that Musa knew would occur when she asked the question, but she didn't want to answer anymore questions about the ball.

* * *

"What a freaky movie," Stella said as the girls made it back to the campus after the movie. Since they couldn't decide on the movie, they decided to watch "The Monster graveyard" which was a cross between creepy and horribly gory. She didn't thinking that anyone would really like the movie, but it was a lot of fun hearing all of her friend scream in fear, while the 10 year olds watching the movie were just fine. (**6**) "I still have chills,"

"Yeah, but at least it had a happy ending," Techna exclaimed. It did have a happy ending, the main character lived and she managed to save her brother as well.

"Yeah, nothing brings a family back together like fighting monster and zombies," Bloom exclaimed happily. "Escape a time bomb and a tidal wave,"

"That movie scared me," Flora said. She was the one person that had vehemently opposed watching the movie, she even went so far as to side with watching Stella's insipid movie instead of seeing the horror movie. "Can we please stop talking about it,"

Even though Flora begged for them to stop, the girls couldn't help but talk about the movie and that only led to everyone getting on edge about what was going on around them. They all seemed to take notice of every squeak that the door knobs made or the slight rumbles that came from others moving around in towering floors.

Finally, they got to their dorms and managed to get to sleep, only to be awoken once again by a shrill shriek in the night. Musa was shocked away by the sudden scream in the night and having the images of the movie still playing back in her head, she imagined the worst. She and Techna got up immediately and ran to the owner of the scream. Stella, who was sitting on her bed with beads of sweat falling down her face.

"Sounds like you had a nightmare," Bloom said after Stella had explained to the girls what had happened. But Musa was still preoccupied thinking about everything else that was going on that she really didn't ay attention to Stella's assertions that there was something real about her dream. She said that she felt like something was scratching at her and trying to hurt her in reality, but Musa simply shrugged it off and went back to bed.

Laying in the soft satin sheets, Musa fell back to sleep rather quickly and before she knew it she was dreaming about the same thing she had been dreaming about since she had seen Riven in Magix. Except, in her dream Riven wasn't acting like a total and complete ass. The part that kept replaying in her mind was when he pulled her close, except this time it was sweet. As music softly played, Riven began to look at Musa the way he had before, when he was different, when he was the guy Musa liked. He caressed her cheek and pulled her close and just as he was ready to kiss her, everything disappeared. It all faded into the background and Musa found herself in Magix, only it was completely empty.

"Musa, oh Musa," Said a very familiar voice. It was her mother's voice, Musa could remember it perfectly. She could hear her mother calling out to her, but she could not see where she was, the city remained empty and Musa began to feel alone. "Let's sing you a song darling. Let's sing together….wait there's no music. Where is all the music Musa?"

"Are you okay mom?" Musa asked frantically. Suddenly the dream fell silent and Musa could hear nothing. Musa's dreams were rarely ever silent, there was music to accompany everything in her life and when things were quiet, it was never good. "Mom, are you okay!" She asked once again looking around the empty city and seeing nothing. Finally she looked to her right and saw her mother sitting alone on a bench. Musa ran to her as quickly as she could.

"I can't hear the music," Her mother said with a blank stare, she kept asking the same question, it was the question that Musa had asked her father for years after her mother passed away, when her father couldn't bare to even hear a melody. "Where did all the music go? I miss music so much…"

Just as she said that her voice became distant and she vanished, just as Riven had earlier in her dream. "Mom!" Musa cried out, hoping for someone to answer her, but nothing. "Mom where are you! Please don't leave me!" She was left there standing in the city alone. That was when Musa's eye flew open and she could hear her heart beating loudly in her ears and sweat all over her face.

It was her greatest fear, being alone. She had a lot of trouble all her life trying to adjust to new people coming into her life. She always found it easier to stick with those that she knew since she knew they would never leave. Musa hated the idea of being alone, after her mother died she had felt like the world had closed in on her and there was nobody that could save her from it. And then her father became busy, it was his way of dealing with everything, but it left her alone. That was when Musa look solace in her best friend, Daniel. And sitting there, covered in sweat and feeling her heartbeat finally slow back down to it's normal rhythm, Musa knew why she felt like she had to forgive Daniel. She needed him. "It was just a dream," Musa told herself, hoping she would calm down, but now she couldn't.

She sat up in her bed for a few more minutes and felt scratches on her arm. She figured she had gotten them from somewhere at the ball and slipped back under her covers. Even though she was reluctant, she let the seductive pull of sleep win, only to be shaken from her sleep for the third time that night. "Musa…Musa wake up!"

Musa sat up in her bed and saw the rest of the girls walk into her room. "Musa do you by chance feel weak?" Techna asked reaching her trembling arm out to help Musa sit up. "I had a rather unsettling dream and now I feel so much weaker, like I'm drained of all my energy,"

"I had a crazy dream too," Musa said, still able to recall the dream perfectly in all it's horror. The girls began to describe what was happening as they tried to figure out what was going on with them. This was way more than a coincidence, there was something else going on, it was like the dreams actually felt real, like you could feel something happening to you. All of a sudden Flora walked out of the room and over to Mirta.

Mirta had finally been able to make contact with them after being trapped as a pumpkin for so long. She told them that they were attacked by a nightmare monster. It was a type of beast that attacks when someone is sleeping to drain their power and keep it for itself.

The girls finally figured out a plan where they would ambush this monster and get it once and for all. The next night, Flora had decided to act as a decoy while the rest of the girls attacked the monster and it seemed like they were winning until the fatigue from the previous night caught up to them. It was only when Miss. Faragonda stepped in that they could finally get rid of the beast.

After it was over, the girls still had no idea why the witches were so bent on destroying them, but it was clear that the next few weeks would not be easy on anyone.

* * *

_1. That is the same name as the mother in 'the parent trap' the version with Lindsay Lohan, not the older version. Anyway in the movie, Elizabeth James is a dress designer. So ta-da she popped up here! _

_2. Could this possibly the day of the royals?! Hmm…._

_3. This is an actual bar in an actual New York City hotel, special prize to anyone who guesses correctly._

_4. hmm sounds a lot like mission impossible._

_5. A blonde lawyer that gets no respect, but preserves using her impeccable taste? Legally Blonde!_

_6. this actually happened to me and my friends when we went to see 'when a stranger calls' even though everyone says it was a horrible movie, we were scared to death._

_So the next chapter is, I'm sure you already know but I'll tell you anyway, royal heartbreak! I know a lot of you are looking forward to it, hopefully you'll like it. Remember this is a Musa story so it will revolve mostly around her, not that the other won't be mentioned quite a bit. _

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	17. Royal Heartbreak

**Royal Heartbreak**

"Ready," Ali said with a wicked smile as she and Musa stood in front of the door of the dance studio at Alfea. It was 4 in the afternoon which meant that dance practice would be letting out in a few minutes. After weeks of planning and figuring out how to exact her revenge, Musa with the help of Ali had figured out exactly how to make Karen pay.

"Of course, although you seem to be having a lot more fun with this than I am." Musa had been working on a way to get Karen exactly where it hurt and it looked like she had finally figured out a way how. Most of the actual work was done, now all they had to do was watch as Karen saw what they had done.

"Well cause I'm a bitch," Ali replied as if it were the most normal thing in the world. She then pushed the door open with her hand and looked at Musa. "This should be fun,"

"Ali, you missed the entire practice," Karen scolded when she saw the brunette walk onto the hardwood floor of the dance studio. "Take your place in formation, and sorry but all of our practices are closes, if you want to see the dance you'll have to wait till we perform it next," Karen said to Musa dismissing her from the room.

"About that," Musa began as she walked up to Karen, gently slapping a folder against her palm. "How about you read this over really quick," Musa handed the folder over to Karen, who looked like she hadn't the least bit of care for what was in it, but she read it anyway.

"The Alfea guidelines for extra curricular activity…so?"

"Well as you can see, everyone participating needs at least a 'B' average –," Musa began before she got cut off by an irritated shot by Karen.

"Which I have,"

"Yeah just barely, and you didn't let me finish," Musa said, still in the polite voice that she had begun with. "It also states that all leaders of these activities need to have a clean discipline record, it's okay if you forgot out that. Ms. Enchantra, you the activities director, overlooked that small detail as well."

"What's your point," Karen asked with a worried look forming on her face.

"I think you know, but I'll help you out since you're not exactly he brightest crayon," Musa said as she grabbed the folder back and pulled out the last page. "This is your Alfea disciplinary record and it looks like you've racked up quite a lot of demerits, so many that Enchantra has revoked your spot as captain of the team,"

"What!"

"It means your out, dumbass," Ali yelled from her spot in formation.

"Okay, I'm still on the team and we need to elect a new captain and since you're still off the team, you get no say," Karen said trying to find a whole in their plan.

"Actually, last night I gathered the team and they voted on me for captain," Ali said stepping out of formation and taking Karen's place in the front of the team. Karen then turned to what used to be her team and looked upon them with disgust, finally she knew how Musa had felt when she was betrayed by everyone around her. "Actually they voted for Musa, but as you know she's not on the team, so I guess it's me,"

"Yeah, but that's not it," Musa said in a tone mocking sympathy. "Once we got a look at your transcript, we may have left it on Enchantra's desk and she became a little worried for your grades. So, she called Ali to her office, since she is now in charge of the team, and they decided… oh Ali, why don't you tell her,"

"We decided that it would be best if you didn't participate in the team for the rest of the year, so you could get your grades up," Ali said with her wicked smile still in tact.

"But that left an empty spot on the team," Musa added.

"So I reinstated Musa," Ali added. "And since she was the one who the girls here picked initially to be their captain, I relinquished my power to her,"

"Musa's record isn't exactly spotless either," Karen threatened. "I would hate for this whole thing to happen to you,"

"Yeah, so would I.," Musa looked at Karen with a little confusion, did she really thing that Musa was so dumb as to not cover all the bases with her information. Obviously, she wasn't going to let there be a hole in the plan that Karen could use against her. "Which is why I found my file and replaced it with one less, well colorful," Musa explained. "Don't worry, I still have to go to detention for the minor indiscretions I've committed, but that will be under Faragonda's watch and without any proof or record of my misbehavior there isn't much anyone can do,"

"What fun!" Ali exclaimed happily out of random just to rub it in.

"So to sum it up, I'm captain. You're off the team and now you get to spend every weekday from 2 – 4 in tutoring club, instead of dancing," Musa said happily. "But don't worry, you can try out again next year for the team, and if I think you're ready then you'll be on the team for sure. Till then, you'll have to leave, these practices are closed,"

Karen walked out of the studio horribly ashamed, but still with the dignity that she always walked with. One thing was for sure, Musa had finally gotten to her. "Have fun with your little team, but you should watch your back," Karen threatened.

"And you should spend less time on yours, skank," Ali shot back before Musa could say anything in retaliation. "Just give up and go,"

* * *

By the next day, word of Karen's total humiliation had spread throughout the school and Musa couldn't help but take a little happiness in that. Karen hadn't even shown up for her classes that day, apparently she had decided to take an impromptu trip back home for a bit. She knew that it wasn't right to do that to someone, but she had it coming and it was time Musa stood up for herself and prove she didn't need a royal army or her friends to stick up for her.

"You know this probably means Karen will be retaliating," Techna was never the kind of person to go along with plans to conspire against people, unless those people were the Trix and that hadn't changed after Musa had told her the whole story about what she and Ali did to Karen, since Techna had heard about it in class that day.

"I know, but what is she going to do?" Musa asked with some bravado, she had never pulled something like this off before and there was a strange high and feeling of invincibility that came along with it. "I mean there's dance team and there's you guys. Both of which I'm sure won't turn on me, and she already ruined my relationship with Daniel so there isn't much left,"

"Just be careful," Techna warned and continued on doing her work. Musa nodded and walked out of the room to go to class. There wasn't much that could bring her off the high she was on.

"Tomorrow is the day of the royals," Techna said out of the random after hanging up the phone as Musa walked in the door after he class had finished. She had called Timmy to 'ask him for help' on a math question. Why the best math student in the school would need pointers was beyond Musa, but she didn't hassle Techna about it, it was so obvious how much the two liked each other. "Timmy says it's one of the biggest days for the school,"

"Oh, I think I heard William say something about that," Musa said as she read over some notes that she was about the play on her flute, she recalled when William was babbling on and on how his family was originally invited to be the guests, but they couldn't make it so some other family was invited. He said that he might still go since Saladin had said that he still hoped to see William there. Musa looked up from her instrument to see Tehcna's confused face and she explained. "Oh he was this guy from the ball I was talking to; he's an old family friend. Anyway, yeah I hard him talking about it and saying that it was kind of fun. He might go,"

"Oh so you've been invited?" Techna asked in an almost jealous tone, maybe she wanted to go to this thing, or maybe Timmy hadn't asked her to come. He wasn't exactly smooth when it came to asking out girls.

"I wasn't really paying attention, but I really don't want to go," Musa pointed out. The Day of the Royals was supposed to be one of the biggest days of the year for the boys of Red Fountain. The school was a private academy so it accepted a lot of generous donations from benefactors, many of them being royal families that had members of their respective families attend the prestigious heroics institution. So, the day of the royals was basically meant to show off all the accomplishments of the students to one guest royal family. It was one of the days that many of the guys trained for all year and if one of them just happened to have family visiting as the honored guest, the stress to perform well was doubled. "I mean I guess it sounds fun, but I've had my fill of royal events. Plus, I think if I he invites me then he's gonna think it's like a date and that would be really off mark, it's best I just avoid the situation,"

"Yeah, I guess," Techna said somewhat sadly. "I mean I would rather do something else anyway,"

"Exactly, we'll have some fun tomorrow," Musa resolved, she could tell that Techna was a little disappointed that Timmy hadn't invited her. She was sure that Techna really didn't want to go to see the fencing matches so it had to be that she was feeling a little rejected by the guy she liked. And Musa could definitely relate. "Who needs heroics?"

"Yes, I think we are all perfectly capable of saving ourselves,"

"Exactly," Musa agreed. Techna then went on to start doing some work on her computer. Meanwhile, Musa began to work on her mastery of the flute, it was one of the few instruments that she had left to master. She had begun practicing it earlier that year, but she slacked off a bit during mid terms, but now her fervor to master the flute was a strong as ever. She began to play out a classical composition when the Stella, Flora and Bloom walked into the room.

."Techna, we need a map of Red Fountain," Flora said as she cut into Musa's flute composition.

"Are you guys going tomorrow?" Techna asked. She had jumped to the conclusion that this had something to do with the day of the royals, which made Musa pretty sure that she was a little bothered Timmy didn't invite her.

Nope we're sneaking in," Bloom seemed pretty determined about this and since she was sneaking in, that meant Brandon hadn't invited her either. What was with these boys?

Sky didn't send an invite?" Musa asked Stella. Of all the little pairing that had emerged in the group, Sky and Stella seemed to be the strongest since they had a little something start the year before, that was before Stella got kicked out.

"Nope neither did Brandon," Bloom added

"And Sky's parent's are gonna be there," Flora pointed out. Musa got a little more interested since she was wondering which family would be taking the Riley family's place at the festival. But one thing that confused her was that he had said that the prince's fiancé was going to be coming as well. Musa didn't know if Sky had any older brothers but she had never heard him mention and impending weddings in his family.

"They're the guests of honor," Stella said proudly before realizing that Sky hadn't invited her to something where his parents would be. "Wait, do you think that's why he didn't invite me, because his parent's are going to be there?"

"Maybe," Musa said bluntly.

"No of coarse not," Flora said sending a 'shame on you' look to Musa, who could only laugh, it was a little fun messing with Stella since she was such an easy target.

"Then why?" Stella said through a heavy pout.

"Maybe they found out about you getting kicked out," Musa said not helping at all. "And he's a little embarrassed,"

"Musa!"

"Just kidding…well sort of,"

"I'm not so sure about this guys, maybe I should just stay here tomorrow," Bloom said sadly, she didn't want to get in trouble for sneaking into Red Fountain, but what were the chances of getting caught?

"But, you want to go," Stella insisted.

"Okay fine, I guess I really do want to go,"

"Great then it looks like we're all going!" Flora said happily.

* * *

The next day everyone decided to get up early and try to figure out a cohesive plan as to how they were going to get into the school without being caught. Musa thought that maybe they could just get invitations from William, but then gave it another thought. She really didn't want to owe him anything. "Why can't we just walk in?" Stella said when they arrived at the campus.

"Because there is security, not to mention secret service here," Musa said. She didn't know how someone, especially Stella, would not know about all the security that surrounded royalty. Since she could walk, Musa was followed by big men in suits ready to take a bullet for her at any moment, she was sure that the royal family of Eraklyon had requested some security since they were going to be a such a public event.

"Or we could just run in," Bloom offered.

"And then get shot when secret service thinks we're trying some elaborate kidnapping attempt," Musa said once again shooting down their ideas. But after everyone gave her the same annoyed look, she gave up. "Fine let's just trick him and run in. He looks like an idiot anyway,"

"Ooh there's a race you guys," Stella said peaking in through a crack in the door after they managed to sneak into the day of the royals, unfortunately all the main doors into the stadium where all the seats were, we closed and guarded on the inside by secret service. So there was no getting in, they would have to settle for a partially open door. "It looks like it just started, cute uniforms,"

The girls quickly huddled around the crack in the door to see what was happening, but Musa couldn't see a thing. _Maybe I should have just gone with William, I would have had a nice seat_ She thought, but she had to admit sneaking in with her friends was a lot more fun than sitting with William in the Royal Box. He would probably be going on and on about some trip to a ski chalet or his polo match. "Hey there's Brandon and Riven," Flora said pulling Musa out of her thoughts as soon as she heard Riven's name.

Stella managed to get the door open more so that they see more. Musa managed to kneel down and watch as the guys raced around the stadium on their leva bikes. Even though she knew it wasn't a race, Musa hoped Riven came in last or he fell off his bike or something awful like that. But, nothing of the sort happened, and as soon as they got off their bikes, the dragons came out of the stables. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, from lands distant and unexplored, the mustang dragons!" Came over the loud speakers as the beasts fly out on to the stadium floor. "These wild and dangerous beasts are the fiercest dragons in all the known realms. But fear not, for our sophomore's have mastered the art of dragon wrangling. Using only their mind energy, they will control creatures once thought uncontrollable."

"What happens if they can't control the dragons," Flora asked with concern.

"Well I think the point is to show off the fact that the students can handle this," Musa said as she stared out at the guys. She knew that the heroes didn't have any magic, but they managed to wrangle the beasts with subtle hand movements and concentration. That was when noticed that Brandon and Riven seemed to be murmuring something to each other, which was odd since they weren't exactly friends anymore. Musa tried to listen closely, but the crowd was too loud and she could only pick up on a few things.

Riven was baiting Brandon into doing something stupid. _Why does he have to be like that? _Musa asked herself feeling even more embarrassed with herself for still liking a guy that clearly didn't deserve. But, it looked like Riven's baiting was starting to get to Brandon and the normally calm squire's patience was running thin. Just then the dragons seemed to go haywire. The dragons then turned on there specialist and took an attack stance. "Okay, maybe they can't handle the dragons," Musa admitted.

"Oh my god! Watch out Sky!" Stella shrieked when she saw the dragon that he was supposed to be controlling turn on him as well and roar loudly at him.

Just then the floor beneath the specialist began to rumble, so much that even the people in the stands could feel the temors. "Okay I don't think this is a part of the Day of the Royals," Stella said just as the rumbling stopped. "Was that like an earthquake or something,"

Then, all of a sudden a large collapse in the ground was heard and the girls turned and looked back into the stadium to see an enormous cloud of dust rising from where the boys were. After a few more seconds, another crash was heard and two faires all of a sudden flew up into the air and as the smoke started to clear Musa could make out who one of them was. "Who is that?"

"Eww, Princess Diaspro," Musa said almost as if she had a sour taste in her mouth. She had met her once at a ball that was thrown by her parents. Musa was only there to show the Harmonic Nebula's support for Icsis (**1**) since the King and Queen had recently asked the Harmonic government to join them in a sanction against an oppressive realm. After Musa's father gave his support they all went to this ball to show it. The entire night Diaspro walked around like she was god's gift to the world, luckily Leslie conveniently put a piece of food right in Diaspro's path so that she fell into giant cake sitting in the center of the ballroom.

"You know her," Flora asked as all the girls watched the two battling fairies, it was obvious however that the one fairy was giving a beating to Diaspro. "If she keeps getting hit with those attacks, she's not going to be flying for much longer…"

"I met her once…still trying to forget,"

"What crazy lunatic is attacking her!?" Stella shrieked almost as if she cared what was happening to Diaspro. "And ruining the show! What a loser!"

"Oh crap," Musa said in a gasp when the dust began to clear and she saw who it was attacking Diaspro. "That's our crazy lunatic,"

"What is Bloom doing!" Techna asked as all four of the girls struggled to see more of what was happening. Musa watched as Diaspro feel to the ground from Bloom's attack and then Brandon ran over to her to help.

"Oh! Sky!" She gasped as she ran to and held onto the boy Musa knew as Brandon.

"What…" Musa said in confusion as she and the girls struggled to peak into the door crack and watch what was happening.

"You worthless fan! His name isn't Brandon!" Diaspro said. _Wait! The Prince of Eraklyon is engaged._ Musa remembered hearing William talking about it at the ball. If Brandon wasn't Brandon then…

"It is Sky; Prince of Eraklyon, and my beloved fiancée." _Yup. _Musa thought as she confirmed her suspicions, Brandon is actually the Prince. But that begged the question, who was Sky, or the brunette boy they knew as Sky, actually?

"Move it's my turn!" Stella shrieked and pushed everyone else away, just as the scene was becoming more enticing to watch. Luckily for Musa, she had supersonic hearing so she put her ear against the door and listened intently at what was going on.

"Squire! Over here now!" The king yelled out in anger. Musa listened closely, since the last thing she had seen was Bloom knocking Diaspro right out of the sky and seeing Brandon, or Prince Sky, help her out.

"Yes my lord," Musa's eyes went wide when she heard Sky, or Brandon since that was the name of Sky's squire, answer the man who was supposed to be his father. Musa immediately looked to Stella who looked like she had just been hit by a bus. After a few seconds Stella's eyebrows furrowed in anger. "Squire! WHAT!"

Stella, who was now too shell shocked to move, so Musa moved over to where Stella was to see what was going on now, knowing Bloom was probably not fairing too well after finding out the Brandon was actually Sky and engaged to a bratty princess.

"We need to get Bloom, the guards are coming," Flora said looking down to the stadium. The king had ordered that she be escorted out by the royal guard, even though Sky had ordered them to stand down, they knew that Bloom was in no condition to walk out of there alone, she could barely stand.

"Let's go," Musa said a she walked out of the stadium and into the school as her friends followed. She had been in the school a few times, whenever mixers or dances were held at Red Fountain, the dance team usually needed to know their way around since they always made an entrance and since they needed to know the back ways so that they could get ready for a performance without being seen. "This is the specialists' entrance," Musa said as she walked in, but right before she could make it out onto the stadium floor, they were stopped by security. Musa expected no less.

"Princess Stella and Princess Musa now if you want to keep your job I suggest you move!" Musa said as she pulled out her harmonic I.D. she didn't expect them to know her by face only, but that should have been enough proof to get her through. She had never really been one to pull rank on people, but this was an emergency and besides, she was pissed. "Now!"

The guards moved out of the way and Musa, Techna, Stella and Flora entered the corridors that the specialists used to get onto the stadium floor. They walked out to see the entire crowd looking at them; they had become the show instead of the boys. "Bloom," Flora said, looking at Bloom who was still standing, staring at the ground.

Sky ran to Bloom and grabbed a hold of her hand before she could get to her friends and she turned around and looked at his face, he looked just as shocked as she did for some reason. But before he could say a thing, Musa and Techna ran up to Bloom and pulled her away from the lying prince.

"I think you're fiancé is calling, you're highness," Musa snapped angrily as Diaspro ran to Sky's side and gave Musa an angry look. Musa grabbed Bloom's hand away from Sky, not dropping the furious glare she was shooting at Sky. "Come on let's go Bloom,"

"Please just listen to me," Sky pleaded pathetically. "Please let me explain!"

"I think you've done enough," Techna said as she whipped around and looked at him with anger in her eyes. "Leave her alone,"

Flora and Techna walked with Bloom in between them, quickly so that nobody could see the tears that were now falling from her eyes, while Musa had stayed behind to make sure that Stella was okay.

Musa and Stella seemed to get to each other a lot since their personalities clashed a lot, but it didn't change the fact that they were good friends and Musa knew that Stella wanted to get out of here, but the princess of Solaria walked through the corridors slowly, as if she were walking through a foot of sand. "Hey Stel, come on let's get back to Alfea,"

"I want to kill him," Stella said angrily looking up through clenched teeth. "He lied about everything,"

"Trust me, I've been there," Musa said, as she tried to pull Stella away from the school. "It was best to just get out of here, come on Stel,"

Musa knew that the real Brandon would probably come out here as well to talk to Stella, and she knew that Stella was in no condition to talk to him right now, so it would be best to get her away from the campus as soon as possible. Stella nodded and began walking, this time at a normal pace along with Musa, so they were able to catch up with Bloom. Techna, Musa and Flora walked in a crowd around the two heartbroken girls as they finally started getting off of the Red Fountain campus.

"Stella!" Musa heard from behind her. She turned to see the brunette squire that she used to think was Sky, running after the crowd of girls, probably wanting to do the same thing the real Sky wanted to do. Apologize and explain, admittedly it was probably best that they all talk about this and figure it out, but the boys needed some time to think about the gravity of what they had done.

So, Musa decided to go on the route of guilt, it usually worked really well. Even Daniel feel deep into it's effects, as far as she could see at the ball, he was hurt by her refusal to speak to him. Musa simply turned back and put he hand up as a signal for Brandon to just stop trying.

After seeing a desperate look of sorrow from Brandon's face. Musa and the rest of the girls continued back on their way to Alfea, not that they were too excited to get there since they would probably be in detention forever since they had just created a huge scene. But, it was better than staying here.

* * *

Once on campus, the girls were ordered to go directly to Faragonda's office. Everyone looked to Stella and Bloom to see how they were holding up, while Stella looked like she was ready to kill someone, Bloom looked like she was ready to burst into tears any second. Musa wasn't sure if getting a angry lecture from Faragonda was going to put either one over the edge.

The girls stood in Ms. Faragonda's office all in a line in front of her desk silently waiting for her to say something. They, well Musa and Techna, had explained why they were at the day of the royals and She was so angry and everyone was sure that she was not going to be able to keep her cool for this one. "You left the school grounds without permission," Faragonda began finally after what seemed like an eternity of silence. "Used your powers irresponsibly and ruined the day of the royals. You sullied the Alfea name in front of some of the most important people in Magix,"

"This is all grounds for expulsion," Griselda pointed out. Musa stopped breathing for a second, she couldn't be kicked out of school, she was a good person! It wasn't as if she was like Nancy, the sluttiest girl ever who had a different guy walking out of her room every morning, even though it was very against the rules to have guys over. Or, Paula who was constantly high off something she smoked. Musa got good grades and this was absolutely no fair.

"Griselda is right, and we will meet with the council to see if you five will be invited back to Alfea next year," Faragonda said.

"It's all my fault," Bloom said as she hung her head. Musa looked over to her and it looked like she had managed to gain some composure.

"Normally we would suspend your powers, but at this point in the semester I suggest dilution so that they can continue with all their classes,"

"That's fine," Faragonda answered.

"A fifty percent dilution will keep them out of trouble," Griselda said with a smile, almost as if she was waiting to punish them for something.

"But we told you how the boys lied to us," Stella complained, leave it to Stella to find some type of silver lining to the dilemma.

"That is no excuse, you have abused your privileges and disregarded your responsibilities," Miss Faragonda nearly yelled. "You have disgraced Alfea,"

"I am very disappointed in all of you," Miss Faragonda once again. "You may all go, but we have to speak to you Musa,"

Musa stopped and watched as all her friends left the room. What could they possibly have to say to her? She wasn't the one who went ballistic on Diaspro. "What's going on?"

"As for you Miss Musa," Griselda said. "You will still be the captain of the dance team since Enchantra swears that you have not committed any other acts like this in that past, I would disagree but I just can't seem to find any documentation,"

"Your father also called," Miss Faragonda said. "I have yet to return his call, but I do not know what to say about this situation. I just thought you should know,"

"Okay," Musa said nervously. She wasn't the one who had gone into the records vault, that was Ali, and how she managed to get in there and not get caught was beyond her grasp. But Ali said that they was no way that she could get caught, so Musa didn't have to worry about accidentally telling on her. And with her father calling, she was getting even more nervous. "Thanks, I guess,"

"Yes well be warned, anymore slip ups and you will not only loose your place on the team, but Alfea as well," Faragonda said and then her from her office.

* * *

While Musa, Techna and Flora were still affected by the events that had played out today, it was nothing like Bloom and Stella. They were both emotionally involved with Sky and Brandon and this was a huge slap in the face. Bloom went immediately to her room, while Stella acted like nothing was bothering her and walked over to Bloom's room with her friends.

"How...could…..he ….do that?" Bloom said through sobs as she laid on her bed with her face in a pillow. It wasn't bad enough that he had lied to her about who he was, but being engaged to someone else while leading Bloom on just wasn't right. "I'm so stupid!"

"I'm so sorry sweetie," Flora cooed as she rubbed Bloom's back and tried to make her feel better, but nothing was going to comfort her right now. "You couldn't have known that he would turn out to be like this, you can't feel bad about this,"

"Yeah Bloom, it wasn't right of him to lie, but trust me you'll get through this," Musa said. She was the one person in the room that actually knew how Bloom was feeling, hurt betrayed and most of all foolish for ever believing a word he had said. "But at least you found out now, I mean before thing ever got serious you know what kind of person he is,"

Stella sat silently looking out the window and playing with her hair, the usually very vocal fairy was caught in her own problems right now. She had also been lied to and even though she wasn't going to cry about it, it was obvious that she was feeling a similar heartbreak.

"But he's not a bad guy!" Bloom defended, many would say that she was in denial about the whole situation, but Musa was able to see where Bloom was getting it from. Brandon, actually Sky, was never a bad guy. He hadn't been known to play the field and as Musa got to know him she never suspected him doing something like this, sure one could question her judgment since she never thought Daniel would cheat on her either, but still this wasn't the Sky that she had known. "I don't get it, I mean if he liked me then why wouldn't he break off his engagement or if he loves that girl why would he ever have -,"

Bloom stopped again only to start crying again, so loud in fact that she couldn't hear her phone ringing every couple of seconds. "We need to forget about those losers," Stella said finally speaking up after almost an hour of silence, which had to be a record for her. "They are obviously not worth our time or tears so just forget it," Unfortunately, her attempt at being strong was crushed when her voice cracked with emotion and tears began to well in her eyes, she immediately darted to her room and locked herself in.

Techna, Flora and Musa looked at each other to try to figure out who should go after Stella and see if she was alright. Since Stella was not the type who liked to show any type of embarrassment or feelings of vulnerability, Musa decided to go see her, since she was the exact same way.

Musa managed to pick the lock with a quick spell and open the door to Stella's room. She found Stella sitting alone on her bed holding her pillow to her chest as tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I think maybe you should talk to him," Musa said softly as she picked up Stella's phone, that had been ringing for awhile. She had seen the look on Brandon's face when he came to explain everything to Stella, he looked absolutely horrified when he realized that he may be loosing Stella and even though at that moment at Red Fountain, Musa was angry at the both of them, she could start seeing their side since she the anger that clouded her mind had vanished. "At least hear what he has to say before you shut him out, I mean not today, just later," Musa said calmly as she sat next to Stella on her bed.

"Like how you were hearing out what Daniel had to say," Stella snapped angrily. Musa knew that the anger wasn't meant for her, it was just directed her way, so she didn't let it get to her. "Do you really think you're the best person to be handing out advice?"

"Stella, I'm just saying that when you're feeling a little better you and Brandon should talk –," Musa began again trying to make Stella see her logic, but as Musa recalled she wasn't very good at taking anyone else's advice right after she and Daniel broke up, so she couldn't expect any more from Stella.

"I never want to speak to him again," Stella demanded, her face becoming angry as the tears stopped falling. "That stupid squire isn't even worth my time, I just can't believe that I risked my future here for that worthless nothing."

Musa wanted to slap Stella at that very moment, but she was going to let Stella be angry for now, it was what she needed. Plus, Musa didn't want to end up getting in a screaming fight with Stella either and if they continued down this conversation, that was where it was headed. "Alright Stel, I'll just leave you alone for awhile, if you need anything I'm here okay," Musa said as she walked out of the room. She saw Stella nod, but she didn't say a word.

Musa walked back into Bloom's room to see how Bloom was fairing, which wasn't exactly much better. Bloom, however, had stopped crying. She was now sitting up in her bed silently playing with the tassels that decorated the side of her pillow that was resting in her lap. She looked up at Musa with her blood shot eyes, "Musa can I talk to you?"

"Yeah sure," Musa said. Techna and Flora left to room to see if Stella needed anything while Musa sat across from Bloom. She knew she could talk to Bloom because Bloom would probably take some of the advice she had instead of throwing it back in her face, like Stella had. Even though Musa hated it when Stella did that, she usually had a point.

"Am I stupid to still want him?" Bloom asked bluntly, the second she began talking, tears began to form in the corners of her eyes, but Musa knew that the sobbing stage was probably over now. "After everything, I know I shouldn't and that Stella is probably right – ,"

"Stella's angry, she doesn't know what she is saying right now," Musa said. "And I don't think it's stupid for you to still want him. I mean what he did was wrong on so many levels, but before all that you two got close and it's not strange for you to want the past back,"

"Do you think he loves that girl?" Bloom asked so quietly as if she didn't want Musa to know that she had asked that. Bloom tended to wear her heart on her sleeve and Musa could she that she had developed genuine feelings for Sky Musa had actually given that some thought since everything had happened. If Sky was engaged in high school, as an underclassmen no less, then it probably wasn't him getting down on one knee. She had heard of betrothals a lot and she knew that her aunt was in no way above getting her betrothed to someone. Luckily for Musa, it wasn't Galiena's decision and Musa had made it very clear to her family that she would be the one finding her husband.

Maybe Sky was betrothed and couldn't get out of it. He did have freewill, but Musa knew how much family pressure could shape someone's thinking. "I, I don't think he does because I –," Musa stopped, she didn't want to get Bloom's hopes up, maybe Sky was a huge jackass that planned on never telling Bloom about his fiancé. "You know what, nevermind,"

"No, please keep going," Bloom said thinking she was going to get bad news.

"I think he's probably betrothed," Musa said and remembered Bloom probably knew nothing about the subject. "I mean it happens a lot still and usually their parents have had this type of contract that their kids will get married at a certain age,"

"Do you think that he –,"

"I am not making any excuses for him, I mean he had no right to do that to you. But, I think you guys should maybe talk before you get too carried away with anything," Musa said. She was not too happy with the boys at Red Fountain, but that was no reason to completely write them off, everyone makes mistakes and she wanted to give the guys the benefit of the doubt, at least for now.

"I can't believe I'm actually going to get expelled for this," Bloom said drying her tears and looking back down at her bed. "This is all my fault,"

"You can't be too down on yourself, try to get some sleep and we'll sort this whole thing out tomorrow," Musa cooed and walked back in the room as Bloom crawled into her bed, hoping for some sleep, but probably not going to get any. Bloom got out of bed ten minutes later and sat on her balcony for almost the rest of the night.

* * *

"So I didn't see that coming," Musa said one in her room where Techna and Flora had taken refuge after trying to help Stella. Stella was in her room, wanting to be left alone and Bloom was in her room trying to get some rest, under Musa's orders.

"I can't believe they did that!" Techna said still reeling from the events that had unfolded that day. "Do you think Timmy knew about this, I mean he didn't invite me, this migh –,"

"I doubt he knew," Musa stopped Techna before she could continue. "I mean judging by the look on his face, he was just as surprised as we were,"

"I still can't believe they went on for a year and a half without anyone catching on," Flora said. Musa had also found that particular piece of information interesting. For a man who knew so many royals and royal families, Saladin had really dropped the ball on this one. Musa had thought that Sky was blonde when she had first met him, but she simply passed off what she thought was correct as holes in her memory. How could an entire school system not realize that a prince and his squire had switched places? "I mean that must have taken a lot of work,"

"Yeah and for what?" Musa said. "Just to see what it would be like to switch places? That is probably the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I mean you don't see me switching places with Stella to see what it would be like to be a ditsy blonde,"

"Hey Musa, here," Flora said handing her cell phone over to her. "It's been ringing non stop for like twenty minutes, I think it might be urgent,"

"Thanks, I should call Isabelle back, I'll talk to you guys later," Musa said with a wave as she took her phone and went onto the balcony. "Hey Isabelle," Musa said when Isabelle picked up the phone. "You will never believe the day I've had,"

"I've been calling you all day, where have you been?" Isabelle demanded in an urgent tone. "I've got to tell you something,"

"I went to Day of the Royals," Musa said not really picking up on her friend's tone, that or completely ignoring it. "And since we weren't invited we decided to sneak in and once we were there we found out that Sky and Brandon had switched places for the last two years! Can you believe that!"

"Whoa that's crazy," Isabelle said trying to get back to her point.

"I know, but worst of all it turns out that Sky, the real one, has a fiancé and she and Bloom got in a huge chick fight in the middle of the battle grounds. After Faragonda found out she was pissed. She threatened expulsion, but you don't think she'll do it do you?" Musa said in one breathe. Luckily, Isabelle could get everything Musa had just said.

"I hardly think it matters now," Isabelle interrupted finally after getting a word in the conversation. "I was at your palace earlier today to say hello and pick something up for my dad and I may have over heard your aunt trying to convince your father to pull you out of Alfea,"

"What! Why?"

"All I heard before one of your stupid maids blew my cover, was that your aunt thinks that Alfea isn't good for you, apparently you're in a downward spiral. Then, I heard your father say that he was going to get in touch with your head mistress," Isabelle informed. "You better hope today's little slip up doesn't get mentioned in their chat,"

"But what if Faragonda decides not to expel us, I mean she seemed pretty angry," Musa reasoned not wanting to accept the fact that she may actually have to leave the school she was in love with. She hadn't brought it up with the other girls since they had enough to deal with, but there was a very real chance that she wouldn't be invited back to Alfea. But if she was, she didn't want anything to stop her from coming back. "Besides, it's not like I was the one who attacked someone in the middle of the day of the royals,"

"I'll try to see what else I can dig up and I'll cal you back," Isabelle said trying tot calm Musa. "Look I'm sure it's just one of your aunt's empty threats, no biggy,"

"Okay, I'll try to get on Ms. F's good side for now,"

"Okay, don't worry we'll figure this out,"

Musa hung up the phone and leaned over the balcony and looked out in the direction of Red Fountain. It was as if no good could come from that direction, boys switching identities and lying about it, or joining the side of evil. Maybe it would be best if she just went back home and continued high school at Devon Prep, she knew everyone there and it was familiar to her. Nobody would dare mess with her and she had never had her heart broken there, whereas since she started Alfea it happened twice. She wouldn't have to see Riven, even though she knew she wanted to. Then again, Alfea had become her home and even with everything that happened in the past few months, she couldn't imagine leaving it.

"This sucks," She said to herself as a cold breeze swept across the campus as if signaling worse things to come. "Oh wait!"

Musa quickly dialed a number into her phone and waited for an answer. The call went to voicemail, but this was urgent so Musa left a message. "Hey William it's Musa, I was kind of hoping I could talk to you about something…" (**2**)

* * *

_1. In the episode 'The Wrong Righters' they say that Diaspro is the Princess of Icsis. _

_2. So William is just a character I am using since I need a character and he is useful. He's too concerned with himself to really make much of a difference but he serves a purpose. So let's see what his purpose is…_

_Okay so I hope you liked the episode. I know a lot of you were hoping for some Brandon/Stella or Bloom/Sky drama, but that isn't really the point of my story, especially since I absolutely love Musa/Riven (you'll see that to be very apparent if you take a look at any of my other fics) anyway, next up is 'Senior Witches go to Earth' _

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	18. Senior Witches go to Earth

_Last we left the musical princess, she finally got her revenge on Karen and the Day of the Royals was a bust. (as expected). So here's the aftermath…_

**Senior Witches go to Earth**

Musa stood quietly against the wall out in the quad. She had called her father a few times since she found out that he was thinking about pulling her out of Alfea, but he hadn't been picking up, which only served to worry her more. "Ugh, where's Stella!" Musa asked impatiently. Bloom had gathered the entire group because she wanted to tell them something, but she refused to start until Stella got there.

It had been a few days since the incident at the day of the Royals and the girls had been on probation as a preliminary punishment for their actions. Their powers were diluted and they weren't even allowed to leave the campus without written consent from either Miss Faragonda or Griselda. IT was like they were in prison.

"From my calculations, she tends to be 14.5 minutes late," Techna said, she no longer surprised anyone when she calculated every last detail of something. "So we should be expecting her at any moment," Techna finished as she looked to her watch and then looked up to see the princess of Solaria walking over to them.

"I'm here!" Stella said as she ran over to the girls. She stopped in front of them and nearly doubled over gasping for air. "Sorry, I lost track of time, I was color coordinating my notebooks with my pens, it makes outfit selection a lot easier," Stella had managed to throw herself even more into her clothes, it was almost as if it kept her mind busy so she wouldn't have to think of anything else. Like what happened a few days ago at the day of the Royals, or the possible expulsion that they faced. "So what's up Bloom,"

"I called you here to apologize to you guys," Bloom said as she hung her head and looked to the ground in embarrassment. Musa would never blame Bloom for what happened, since they had all agreed to go along and sneak into the Day of the Royals. But, it kinda was her fault that they were all facing expulsion, since if they had just quietly watched the show and didn't make a scene, their punishment for sneaking in would have been a lot less severe than one for ruining the entire day not to mention breathing the crap out of a guest, no matter how much she deserved it.

"Oh, it's okay sweetie," Flora cooed. She was not going to hold anything against Bloom, especially after what had happened between her and Sky, the real one. While Stella had found a way to try to keep her mind off of Brandon, Bloom couldn't really do anything to take her mind off of Sky and his fiancé. Musa had tried to snap her out of it, but Bloom wasn't able to stop thinking about it. "Everyone makes mistakes once in a while,"

"Yeah, but I got everyone into serious trouble, I think it's best if I just move out of the dorm,"

"No way can you leave!" Stella protested. "You have no idea how much we'd miss you! I've caused plenty of trouble and you've all stood by me so there is no way that you are leaving,"

"Yeah, we'll all get through this together," Flora reassured. "That's what friends are for,"

"Yeah, one for all and all for one," Musa reassured, they were all facing the same punishment for pretty much the same crime. "That's how we roll,"

"Aww, you guys are being so nice, I really don't think I deserve it," (**1**) Bloom said honestly. And even though they were all facing trouble they and never been in, it was best to stick together because there was nothing to be gained by Bloom leaving.

It was still early in the morning, since Bloom had assembled the Winx Club right after their earliest class that morning, they had all gone back to their dorm since it wasn't like they could go anywhere else. The girls sat in the common room, all doing their own thing. Stella was busy flipping through a magazine while Techna did her homework and Flora sat around listening to Musa play her guitar. Bloom was in her room with Kiko and even through they wished she would come out of there and spend some time with them, they all pretty much knew that she needed time.

"Guys I think I might not be coming back to Alfea next year," Musa said putting down her guitar and looking at her friends, she keep thinking about what Isabelle had told her a few nights ago and she couldn't think of any way out of the situation, especially if her father found out about the day of the royals. She had been on the phone non stop since she found out, but nobody knew anymore that what Isabelle had told her a few days ago.

"Yeah, none of us will if the council decided not to let us back," Stella pointed out. "It's totally unfair, I mean last year I blew up a lab room and they let me back in!"

"No, I mean my dad wants to pull me out for some reason. So even if we get to stay, I might not be coming back," Musa began sadly. "I was talking to Isabelle a few nights ago and she told me that she stopped by the palace and my aunt was trying to convince my dad to think about pulling me out,"

"What! He won't do it will he!" Stella said. "First Bloom and now you! Look nobody is leaving!"

"It's not like I wanna go, I just don't know if my dad is going let me come back," Musa said as she laid back on the couch. "He already called Faragonda to check up on me,"

"So, that doesn't mean anything!" Stella said angrily as she crossed her arms around her chest. "He could have been asking about one of the fundraisers or something,"

"Yeah cause that's so likely," Musa said looking over to Stella with a shrewd look.

"Well, Stella might have a point. I doubt he called about a fundraiser but Faragonda might tell him the good stuff too. I mean you have some of the best grades in our class," Flora pointed out. It was a little known fact that Musa actually did well in school. While Techna was more known for her brain and Musa was known for her musical ability and of coarse dance team, Musa hardly ever got credited for her nearly perfect grade point average.

"Yes, it wouldn't make any sense to pull you out of a school where you are doing so well," Techna added as she looked up from her laptop.

"I guess it's how you define 'doing well'," Musa pointed out. Her grades were pretty good, but then again her grades were also really impressive at Devon Prep. "I mean I've been in detention more in the past few months then I've ever been in. And that included the time that I helped put Headmaster Charleston's Ferrari in Stiveson Lake,"

"How come he doesn't find out about that stuff, but this stuff he does!" Stella pointed out. "It hardly seems fair,"

"Because the reason they wanna pull me out probably has nothing to do with my grades or disciple record." Musa pointed out. If pulling her out of Alfea was a good idea then her father wouldn't need any convincing, but her aunt had probably gotten some sick notation in her head and now she needed to try to convince the King of it's validity so she could get her way. Since nothing happened without his approval. "I mean my aunt was trying so hard to keep me from leaving in the first place,"

Just then, Naurelle, a fairy that also went to Alfea, opened the door to their dorm and told the girls that Faragonda had called them to her office. The girls all exchanged the same looks and then stood up to go meet their fates.

"I think I should go get Bloom," Flora said as she got up and walked over to her bedroom, only to see that it was empty. She ran back out with a note in her hand and a panicked look on her face. "Bloom is gone! And she lef this,"

The girls huddled around the note and read it. Bloom had gone home for awhile. Even though they wanted to go after her and bring her back, especially since she was only at half of her full power since the dilution spell (**2**), they couldn't because if they missed this meeting then there would be nothing to bring Bloom back to. "I can't believe this, someone should have been watching her!" Stella yelled angrily. "What is so bad about this school that is making everyone leave!"

With that the blonde fairy stormed out of the dorm to leave Musa, Techna and Flora standing in silence. "We should go to see Miss Faragonda," Flora suggested.

"You girls go ahead," Musa said looking around. "I need to quickly call Isabelle and see if she found out anything about what's going on at home."

"Okay, we'll see you in her office," Techna said. "But hurry, I really think we need to be on time for this, since we aren't on Miss. Faragonda's list of favorite people."

Musa nodded and dialed into her phone as she watched her friends walk out of the room. After about five calls, one right after the other, to the twin, Musa figured she wouldn't be picking up so she decided to head over to meet her fate. Besides, if things didn't go well in with Miss Faragonda, she wouldn't have much to ask Isabelle.

* * *

Musa walked out of her room and began to walk over to Faragonda's office, she walked through the marble corridor and onto the green grass when she saw two familiar faces walking up to her, but she hardly wanted to see them right now.

"Hey Musa, is Stella around?" Brandon asked nervously with his hand in his pockets stopping Musa's quick stride over to the hallway. Standing next to him was Sky, looking as nervous as his squire did. They had given it a couple of days and now they were here to try to straighten things out with their respective girls, since they refused to pick up any phone calls from them. (**3**)

"Actually I'm not Musa, I know I should have told you guys," Musa began mockingly. "I'm actually Flora, I know it was wrong to lie I just _had _to know what it would be like to not be a princess. And I know it's a completely stupid reason, but hey you guys wouldn't understand the tremendous pressure I'm under. Being a princess is so hard!" Musa said sarcastically with a fake pout on her face and her arms crossed in front of her as if she understood why it was that they made such a bone headed decision.

"If you could just see what we –,"

"No what I saw was two of my best friends fall apart, like I have never seen them before because you two decided to play dress up in each other's clothing," Musa snapped. "I've dealt with lying boyfriends before so let me make this very clear, you are to stay away from my friends until they want to see you,"

"Musa we're sor-,"

"Please, I've heard that sentence way too many times for it to have any effect on me," Musa said again with more venom. Brandon and Sky both knew that Daniel and Musa had broken up, but Stella and Bloom had decided that it wasn't really their business to know why unless Musa wanted to tell them. And even though Musa was just sticking up for her best friends, Brandon and Sky could both tell some of the anger she had wasn't meant for them, it was just directed that way.

"Okay, fine," Brandon said giving up, knowing that if Musa was this angry, that Stella couldn't be too happy with him. "But can you please just tell Stella that –," Brandon began before Musa stopped him.

"I'm not your messenger," Musa said as she turned around and walked away. But after she took a few steps and started to feel guilty for being so harsh. The both of them looked as if they had been up every night thinking about what happened, which was a good thing since they should feel guilty. "If you guys really are sorry, then I'm sure this will work out, but they need time,"

Musa then continued to walk along her way to Miss Faragonda's office as Sky and Brandon walked off the grounds and went back to Red Fountain. Musa wanted to tell Sky that his actions had sent Bloom back home, but she knew it would cause him to hurt more and plus, Musa wasn't sure if she wanted to give them the benefit of knowing that he had such an effect on her friends.

With her eyes still blazing with anger, Musa walked into Miss Faragonda's office and took her place standing in front of her desk. The four of them were lined up silently in front of her desk waiting for her to begin since they didn't want to say anything to make her even more angry with them. "Where is Bloom," Miss Faragonda asked calmly.

"Umm about that," Stella began and then looked over to the other three fairies. Nobody knew what to say so Stella just went on with it. "She left,"

"What!" Griselda growled. "You girls know what your probation entails and leaving the campus was strictly forbidden. After everything that girl did at the day of the royals, you' would think that she might have some more sense that to just leave!"

"She felt horribly about what happened and she went home!" Musa snapped forgetting her place, something she tended to do a lot when she got angry. "She thinks that she doesn't belong here,"

"We need to go get her!" Stella pleaded. "She belongs here, I mean can you explain how an earth girl has magical powers? Especially since the last of the magical beings on earth died out hundreds of years ago?" Everyone in the room then fell silent once again and looked at Stella with confusion. She was usually not the type to have a point with what she was saying, so when she did, it came to a surprise for everyone. "What? I read my magical history textbook…it's not just a book to hold up my vanity mirror,"

"I can't let you go, with your powers diminished it's too dangerous," Miss Faragonda finally decided. "It's out of the question,"

"But, we're worried," Flora said quietly.

"I understand, but I can't give you permission to leave the school grounds under any circumstances," She held firm on her decision, which was probably best since they were at major risk with their powers diluted. "It would be far too dangerous, please allow me to remind you that you are on academic probation young ladies,"

"But, Bloom needs us!" Musa yelled out knowing how dumb it was to disagree especially now.

"Miss Musa!" Griselda snapped at Musa's disobedience. "It would be smart right now for you to choose your words carefully,"

"This discussion is over," Miss Faragonda informed. "But, I will have you know that we have spoke to the council and they have decided that a probation will be sufficient for you girls to learn you lesson,"

"Yes, it seems that the Riley family was invited to the day of the royals and William Riley called last night," Griselda informed. "It was quite convenient too, but he said that he had invited all five of you to the event."

"The Riley family requested that we take into consideration their support of Alfea over the past twenty years since the eldest of the Riley daughters graduated," Miss Faragonda said. "You girls will be invited back next year granted that you girls don't give us anymore reason to discipline you,"

"Okay so can we go?" Stella asked anxiously.

"Yes you may," Miss Faragonda said excusing the girls from her office. "Except for you Princess Musa, we need to have a word with you,"

"Is there something wrong," Musa asked as she heard the door close behind her as her friends left the room.

"I am sure you know that your father has been contacting the school to decide your future here," Miss Faragonda stated. "And I am obligated to recite your disciplinary record to him if he asks and he did ask for it,"

"So am I leaving?" Musa spat out finally after a few seconds.

"He hasn't made his final decision, but he wants to speak with you in person," Miss Faragonda informed. "So you will be escorted to Magix Airport and taken home, you will return tomorrow afternoon,"

"I'm going home?" Musa asked confused. It was almost noon meaning she wouldn't be home till the early evening. Then she would have to leave early in the morning to get back her by the afternoon. It seemed like a lot of trouble, but she needed to try to straighten things out.

"Yes, until tomorrow," Griselda repeated. "Your father has arranged for a car to pick you up along with police escorts since your powers have been diminished, they will be arriving in one hour so I suggest you gather your things,"

"umm..okay," Musa said still a little confused as to what was going on. She walked out of the office and back over to her dorm. _I guess it's better then being expelled…_ Musa thought, now she still had a chance at changing her father's mind. So this was a step up from where she was before. But now that William had helped her out, she would probably have to go out with him on a date or something.

* * *

"Oh my god Musa!" Stella said running up the musical princess the second she walked in the door and giving her a huge hug. "How you managed to convince William to help us out I will never know, but we get to stay!"

"Thanks Musa," Flora said happily. "Now all we have to worry about is getting Bloom back here and everything will be okay,"

"So what did Miss Faragonda want to talk to you about," Techna asked as she walked out into the common room. "Was it about –,"

"I have to go home," Musa blurt out as she began walking to her room, sweeping past Techna on her way. "I have to pack a bag quickly a car is coming for me soon,"

"Wait your leaving now!" Stella said as she, Flora and Techna followed Musa back into her room. "But I thought you said next year, you can't leave now!"

Musa walked into her closet and got an overnight bag out of her closet and stuffed a few things in it while Stella sat on her bed and complained. "My dad is just calling me back for tonight so we can talk about this, I am coming back tomorrow afternoon,"

"Doesn't make much sense," Techna said from her bed. Musa continued to stuff her ipod and other things into the overnight bag that was sitting on her bed next to Stella. "I mean what can possibly be accomplished in one night?"

"God knows," Musa said picking up her bag. "But I think this one is a biggy or else they wouldn't be calling me back home. Plus my dad was supposed to be in Illyria (**4**) and he is coming home just so he can talk to me."

"Well if your going home to guarantee you place here, I'll go and get Bloom to guarantee her place here as well," Stella decided.

"She said no," Flora reminded.

"So what does 'no' mean anyway," Stella answered.

"What are you going to do?" Musa asked with an exasperated sigh. "Stel we finally got outta trouble, you cannot go back and dig yourself even deeper."

"Yeah Stella, don't do anything. We're on probation," Techna reminded. She out of everyone was the most concerned with her status at Alfea. She had worked really hard to get into the school and get a scholarship so she couldn't risk loosing it anymore than she already had. "Let's try not to get too involved with the disciplinary system anymore,"

"Oh come on, if I were gone I would want you to go get me," Stella explained. "No matter what,"

"I know Stella, it sucks that we can't do anything, but you can't get in trouble all over again," Musa explained.

"Yes we can, cause I'm going,"

"Stop being stupid Stella, just stay put I'm sure Miss. F will take care of it," Musa argued.

"You get to leave!"

"Trust me," Musa said grabbing her bag and throwing on a pair of oversized sunglasses. "I would rather be stuck here," She looked over to the campus and saw that there was a car pulling up to entrance gate. "I'll see you guys tomorrow,"

"Okay bye hun," Flora said with the same cheery smile. "Don't worry, we're destined to be here and I'm sure everything will work out,"

* * *

Musa arrived at her palace hours later, she hadn't been there since spring break and she hadn't left on the best terms. The palace sat at the top of a large hill, the entrance gates were actually a bit of a walk from the palace entrance. It looked like a castle that one would expect to see in fairy tales, it had the conically shaped guard towers on either side of it and it was made of light colored bricks. It had many large windows and a large fountain sitting right in front of the castle doors.

The princess gazed up at the palace and sighed. She loved her home and that would never change, but she needed to grow up and be on her own. Musa walked up the stone steps of the entrance and the palace doors opened for her. She continued onto the marble foyer and handed her bag off to a maid and made her way to the dining room knowing exactly what awaited her, but she had to face it with some grace since she did need something out of her father.

Musa made a turn into the large entranceway to the dinning room after passing many servants that looked surprised to see her back at the palace. "Hello Musa, sit down darling," Said Galiena as Musa walked into the dining room. "Actually, why don't you go change into something more suitable for dinner," Galiena said after taking a look at Musa's outfit. She had never really approved of Musa's fashion choices, but Musa never really paid much attention to it.

But today, she figured she could just grin and bare it since she needed something from both her aunt and her father. Musa gritted her teeth, but said nothing. She simply nodded and smiled and then walked out of the dining room and up to her room. Her room was like a sanctuary for her, it was the only place in the palace that didn't have that regal feel to it. Not that it was a bad feeling; it did make Musa feel important but it also made her feel so stuffy and boring.

Her room on the other hand was a direct result of her own creativity. There were different shades of blue splashed on the walls. There was probably every instrument sitting on it's respective stand and an enormous, comfortable bed in the middle of it all. And on the wall directly opposite the bed, there was her name painted in a deep azure blue, her mother had painted it when Musa was only an infant and it was one of the few things that she refused to ever change.

Musa walked into her closet in an attempt to find something 'more suitable' for dinner. What she really wanted to do was walk down in her robe and fuzzy slippers just to get a reaction out of her aunt, but she needed to swallow that urge and focus on her objective. She pulled out a formal blouse and skirt and wondered if it would be okay for dinner. Musa had a very specific test for knowing if something were suitable, if her aunt would do it then it was safe to do around other royals like her.

She put on the outfit and walked back into the dining room, promising herself that she would try to keep a level head and not get to angry, since her aunt had a way of getting to her. "You look much better; wouldn't it be nice if you wore things like that more often?"

"Maybe," Musa said through grit teeth and a fake smile as she politely took a seat across the table and took a sip of the water sitting in front of her. She just needed to keep her smart remarks to herself and everything would be okay. "So, what exactly do you need to talk to me about?" She asked as if she didn't already know.

"I need to speak to you and so does your father, but since he wont e here for awhile, I'll go first," Galiena said, her tone changing from cordial to cross. "I need to speak to you about your behavior since you've left for Alfea,"

"What about it?" Musa asked just keeping the attitude out of her voice.

"I think that you have changed, for the worse, since you've been there,"

"I disagree," Musa snapped back bluntly.

"I thought you might, but you can hardly argue with the facts,"

"And they would be?"

"You hardly spoke to your friends at the ball in Magix a few weeks ago," Galiena pointed out taking an unfair stab at Musa since she didn't know that anyone of her friends were going to be there. "And you've burned every bridge with Daniel for some other boy,"

"Excuse me!" Musa said putting down the glass that was in her hand. How could Galiena even know that Musa liked someone else, unless she guessed, but that was highly unlikely.

"I know everything missy, you can't keep these kinds of secrets from me," Galiena said as if she were so proud to have figured out something about Musa, now if only she could figure out that Musa didn't like her too much. "Who is he?"

"Who?" Musa asked genuinely confused as to what was going on. "What are you talking about!"

"That boy, that boy that you so stupidly threw Daniel away for? Is he at least from a good family? You broke up with Daniel, I had to force you into going to the ball where William would be. So what assumption can I make, there is another boy in your life and since you haven't told anyone about him, he must be no good for you," Galiena asked angrily. "You have done some questionable things, but you better not lie to me about this, why are you hiding so much from your own family?

How did she know all of this! "News flash! I never tell you anything and what I do in Magix, or wherever I choose to be, is absolutely none of you business,." Musa said loosing the patience she swore to herself that she would keep. Galiena had either been spying on her or someone told her something. That's when it came to her, Daniel must have said something.

He was trying to get her attention at the ball, but Musa refused the hear it. He probably threw a fit and told on her! Musa couldn't believe he would stoop so low. There was this unwritten rule between all of her friends and between everyone from school, nobody was every to tell on anyone else, no matter how stupid the shenanigan. Only if it were vital to inform an adult would they ever reach for that last resort. "What! Did he come crying to you! Little prince Daniel couldn't deal with this himself he came crying to you!"

"It hardly matters who did what," Galiena was obviously dodging the question. "And what exactly does he need to handle? Hmm? Have you gotten yourself in trouble at Alfea, other than that boy..."

"There is no boy!"

"Don't lie to me I know there is!"

"There isn't and if there was then it wouldn't be any of your business!"

"You infuriating child! You don't know your place," Galiena snapped. "Musa I don't know how many times I have to tell you this before it starts getting through that thick skull of yours. You will be queen one day and you need to start doing what is right for your people. I will not sit by and watch as you disgrace the family name,"

"What makes you think I am going to do that?" Musa said as she tried to bring her voice back to a normal tone. "Just because I don't listen to rules that are completely outdated?"

"Those 'rules' are guidelines that people have been following for centuries so who are you to question them?" Galiena argued. "You have a duty as a princess and whether you like it or not you must start acting like it,"

"So what? Do you want me to walk around her in a ball gown everyday and marry some guy you hand pick for me?"

"Well it would be nice if you at least considered it…"

"Not a chance," Musa said firmly, and even though her aunt was furious at least she knew that her niece would be very determined during foreign diplomacy, which was usually good.

"You still don't get it, you are not only serving your family as a princess," Galiena explained as her voice lowered as well. "You are serving your entire kingdom, which is more beneficial to a kingdom? When a princess marries a prince and joins two powerful kingdoms, or when she chooses to go against what she knows is best and subsequently destroy chances at a very advantageous union?"

"His majesty has arrived," Musa and Galiena stopped their bickering almost immediately. When Musa's father was around, they had both agreed not to argue since he hated it so much, besides Musa cared what her father thought of her and she knew that it disappointed him when she didn't get along with her own aunt.

A few minutes later, Musa's father walked into the dining room where Musa and Galiena had already been seated. He took his place at the head of the table and looked at the two of them. "Well now that the two of you have gotten the bickering out of your systems, we can talk about the reason I called you home," He said as he sat down knowing that his sister and his daughter could never get along.

"So why did _you_ call me home?" Musa asked, again knowing why but she wanted to see what her dad had today.

"Your aunt is worried about you being so far home," Her father explained. _Please, the only thing she's worried about is how she'll look in society…_Musa thought bitterly but kept the comment to herself. "She thinks, and I now agree, that the distance has caused you to act out,"

"Act out?" Musa said confused. "But, I haven't done anything…"

"I called your headmistress and she said that you've been in detention for a multitude of reason including getting in a physical confrontation with someone else," The king informed.

"You did what!" Galiena said as fury reignited in her eyes. "Have you no shame, you hit someone! You are a princess not some lowly child who doesn't know any better,"

"It was a mistake," Musa mumbled, not as willing to raise her voice in front of her father. "I'm sorry,"

"Your actions have consequences Musa, and you represent the entire kingdom," Galiena warned. "Hitting someone is as good as declaring war, pleas tell me you hit some worthless wench,"

_I did. _Musa tried very hard to suppress a smile as she thought that since she knew it wouldn't go over very well.

"That's enough," The king said with the same calm tone.

"No! I have held my tongue for too long, she has had nothing but snide comments to spit out of that verbose mouth of hers. Not to mention she is talking to her father and her aunt, not some of her low-rank friends that she has met at Alfea. I do not care how much you dislike what I have to say," She continued as she turned her attention to Musa. "You will so respect to your elders, or so help me, child, you will be attending finishing school until it finally sinks in,"

"Galiena please, I need to speak with Musa," He said dismissing her from the room. Galiena nodded, not at all happy with the dismissal and left the room quietly.

"You know why she's doing this!" Musa said angrily at her father. "She just wants me to be some brainless princess clone and marry a prince to make the family proud,"

"What is so wrong with wanting you to be happy?" Musa's father asked.

"Nothing if that made me happy, but I like wearing low rise jeans, I like and if I want to I'll date a factory worker if I so choose!" Musa snapped. "Why do you want me do be someone that you know I'm not!"

"We're trying to protect you Musa, there are people out there that will try to take advantage of your royal status and others who will make your life miserable if you don't know how to behave correctly in certain situations," He explained.

"Who cares?" Musa asked. Honestly, she didn't give a damn what other royals thought about her and she expected her father to be the one person who understood. He had left the life of royalty to pursue something that made him happy, why couldn't he understand if Musa wanted to do the same. She wasn't even leaving; she wanted to be free from the binds that her birth right gave her.

"Because I wasn't the only heir to the throne," He explained. "I fell into being king because it was your grandfather's last wish for me to take the throne because of the family name, but you are the only heir and you _will_ have to be queen one day,"

"So, I can be queen and I can rule the kingdom," Musa tried to convince him. "And I can do it without having to give up who I am,"

"I am not asking you to," He commanded a little louder. "But you need to listen to me and, even though you may detest it, your aunt. We know what it's like to grow up in this world and whether you like it or not she's knows a lot more than you do. Please just try to listen to her more when she asks something of you,"

"Why should I?" Musa asked obstinately. Her dad did have a point, Musa may have hated the way they wanted to act, but she knew that if she wasn't always so against doing things, that she might actually be able to enjoy some things some more. But, everyone was so fake in that world and Musa had such a hard time restraining herself from slapping on of those brain dead, designer bag toting princesses. Some of them were nice and friendly, like the ones she had managed to befriend, but others were inconceivably fake and annoying.

"Because you do need to respect what she has to say a little more," He said. "And because she and I have had to deal with a lot, being in this family hasn't been easy in the past twenty years. "Musa you're mother would never show it, but she wasn't happy here." He admitted before turning away from his daughter. "After I had to ascend the throne we moved to the palace and your mother wasn't brought up in the world that I was, or you have been. It took a lot of adjustment for her,"

"What are you saying, mom wasn't happy here?" Musa said as tears began to fall from her eyes. "And if she wasn't then why are you pushing it all onto me?"

"It wasn't the place, it was the people," He began again trying not to get as emotional as his daughter had. "Darling she was so happy with you and when it was just the three of us, but people had trouble accepting of our union and they made it hard for your mother. Why do you think we hardly stayed in the palace?"

"Why are you telling me this?" Musa asked. Was this all done to upset her into not thinking straight, or to make her feel bad?

"You may not like it but the truth is the world you live in is one with false flattery and overly imposed manners. But you will have to deal with these people when you take the throne," He explained further. "And if you want to go against everything these people stand for you will not survive long and neither will your kingdom,"

"As for the story about you mother," her dad began once again. "If I had to do it all again I would not have changed anything about how I met your mother. But, when you bring someone into this world it has an effect on them as well, especially if they are not like everyone else,"

"Mom wasn't royalty," Musa spat, as if she hadn't heard that enough, summing up what her father was trying to put delicately,

"I loved your mother more than life, but I could never stop feeling guilty for making her deal with this lifestyle," He said sadly. "But she wanted to raise you to embrace your heritage and you are a princess so she held her tongue and stayed here because she wanted you to live the life you deserve as a royal. Leslie and Nate and all of your friends that you have made here, they know this lifestyle. The in's and the out's, I wanted you to find someone more like you for your own benefit,"

"Really?" Musa said quietly with a hint of disbelief.

"You have never had someone you love make an enormous sacrifice for you, so you don't know how hard it can be. But, I don't want your life to be as complicated as I had chosen to make mine,"

"So you think brining me back here and keeping a closer eye on me is going to change anything?" Musa threatened. If she had to come back she was going to start acting like a spoiled princess and she was going to do it very well, sure it was immature, but she never claimed to be mature.

"I know you make not see it now, but I'm trying to help you," He explained one last time. "I want you to be happy,"

"I'm happy at Alfea,"

The king nodded and kissed his daughter on the forehead before leaving the room. "I'll talk to you later darling, try to get some rest tonight. I love you, Musa,"

"I love you too, daddy," Musa said as she got up from the table and began to walk out of the room, giving her father an indifferent smile as she left the room.

* * *

Musa drove up to the Devon Prepatory campus and passed right by the school that she used to attend. At Devon, every student was required to dorm, but the dorms were a lot bigger than the ones at Alfea. Everyone got their own and they were all the size of luxury town houses, so the drive from Devon to the actual dorms was a bit of a drive.

As she rode over to see the infuriating prince, she thought about just how angry she was and she actually began to realize why Sky and Brandon may have switched lives, if she had the chance Musa might actually be tempted to do the same. She loved her friends and her life, but every time she came back to the palace she felt on edge, like she was on display and she had to act like someone else to be accepted. It wasn't like she regretted being born into this life, if it weren't for it then she wouldn't have met her closest friend that had become her family over the years.

But as she gave it some thought, the best memories she had were the ones when they were together on vacation and away from the royal life. Sure, it was what financed their many escapes, but when they were lounging on the beach together or watching Annabelle attempt to seduce her ski instructor only to find out he was married. They were the memories that she through of when she thought of time when she was truly happy. Their little group had become the family she would have chosen if she could have chosen hers. She loved her dad, but everyone else in her family had their noses way too far up in the air.

And that trip down memory lane only served to anger Musa more towards Daniel, he was ruining everything. She knew exactly where he was staying and if she knew him well enough, which she did, she knew that he would probably be at his place, doing something or someone that he shouldn't be. Musa didn't care what he was doing, he was going to listen to her yell at him and whether Musa was going to hit him or not, she hadn't decided, but she wasn't leaving before she yelled at him.

"Daniel! Open this door now!" Musa yelled as she slammed her fist against the door, not using the doorbell that was right at her side, it just didn't have the effect she wanted. After a few seconds, Daniel opened the door with surprise to see Musa at his doorstep.

"Musa? What are you d –," Daniel began in surprise.

"Not that I don't want to be here for what is sure to be super fun for me," Daniel said sarcastically as he picked up his bag. "But, I really need to get to the embassy and get home. Can we just talk about this later?"

"No," Musa yelled grabbing his bag and throwing it to the floor. "I can't believe you, it isn't enough to ruin our relationship, but know I may have to leave Alfea! Can you just not live unless I'm miserable!"

"What are you talking about?" Daniel asked in genuine confusion.

"Oh please don't even act like you don't know," Musa spat out as she walked further into his place, pacing in anger. "Galiena knew all about the reason we broke up and I didn't tell her! Now it's not like Leslie, the twins or Nate would tell her because they wouldn't do that to me,"

"But I would?" Daniel asked sarcastically. "You're right Musa this is all a part of my master plan to get you back, yeah that's it. I wanted to get you in trouble so you would come back and hate me even more! Do you even hear yourself?"

"Don't turn this around! Who else would do this, I can't believe you. Are you really that bitter? I mean come on Daniel, you obviously hate the fact that I actually liked leaving here and you were jealous and after breaking up you did this as revenge." Musa yelled throwing her hand up in the air in anger. "You were the one that did everything and now I'm being punished again,"

"Think whatever you want Musa, I have to go," Daniel said walking up to his bag and grabbing off the floor. Musa looked up at him and saw that he looked like he was hurt by her accusations, but she knew that he was the only one who could have done this, so there was no reason that she should feel bad about this.

"Fine Daniel leave, that's all I expect from you now. I can't I started to think that you were worth letting back into my life," Musa said quickly walking ahead of him and getting back into her car. She still had to get back to the palace and get her stuff before she could get on the jet to go back to Magix.

Musa backed out of the driveway as Daniel got into his car as well. He looked angry and upset, but not nearly as upset as Musa was. Did he really not realize what he had done? She would have to come back to Devon Prep and even though Musa didn't mind seeing her old friends and going to school with them. But, she couldn't leave Alfea.

* * *

Back at the palace, Musa refused to speak to her father or her aunt. She was supposed to stay the night before she left to go back to Alfea, but she refused to stay. Her aunt had given her yet another lecture on being more respectful, but she was in no mood. Musa simply went to her room and grabbed her bag that she had brought along with her.

"Musa please, I am trying to do what's best for you," Musa's father said as Musa walked straight past him in the hallway outside her room and began to make her way to the limo that was awaiting to take her to the private landing strip where she would be taking her jet back to Alfea.

"No your not!" Musa said whipping around looking her father straight in the eye. "I get that you want me to fit into the whole princess mold a little more and that you think aunt Galiena will get me there and I sat through the etiquette classes. I go to the galas and I grin and bear it when I have to stand and greet everyone in a royal procession. Galiena wants me to be a copy of all those mindless princesses that do as they are told and I won't be one of them! So you keeping me under a closer watch is just going to push me away. Just wait and see!"

"Musa! I am your father and you will not speak to me that way!" The king yelled as Musa stormed away. Her father rarely raised her voice, especially at her and Musa knew it was bad whenever it happened. "You know I have good reason, especially after everything the head mistress has told me about what's happened there. What is so wrong with being closer to your family,"

Musa knew that one of the main reasons her father had agreed with Galiena was because he didn't like the fact that Musa was so far away, but it was no excuse to pull her away from a place she loved. "I miss you too daddy, but I love Alfea and I'm not leaving!"

The palace was an enormous piece of architecture and Musa had to found every way to navigate it with ease. She knew the quickest ways out and the stealthiest ways as well. After sweeping past a bunch of maids, all of which tried to stop the sobbing princess by asking her what was wrong, but she kept on going. Finally, she got outside where the car was waiting.

Musa sat in the limo with tears streaming down her face. It was like everyone was against her. Her own father wanted to take her away from a place that she was happy. The limo pulled away from the palace and Musa watched as she the palace became smaller and smaller as she got further. Just then, Musa heard a ring from her phone.

"Karen did it," Ali said immediately without waiting to see if it was even Musa who picked up, luckily it was her. "I was walking into the dance studio to practice the routine we just started, but Karen was there. So I told her to leave and she started walking out of the gym, but not before telling me about a visit she had made to the Harmonic Nebula,"

"What!"

"Yeah, she said that she went there and visited some old friends. And apparently she 'bumped' into some of your family and then she left saying that they missed you so much that they might just bring you back home, "Ali said. "So she went to your aunt and probably started this whole thing, which is probably why they are calling you back. I mean there's no telling what she told them and that coupled with the few times that you've gotten in trouble here, Karen's got you,"

"Oh my god…" Musa said as she began to rub her temples with her one free hand. "It's too late now, I mean I already left the castle. According to my dad, Alfea may not be 'right' for me. And I blamed Daniel for tell them,"

"Okay well I'm working on how we're going to retaliate here," Ali said knowing Musa would want some revenge since Karen's interference could cause her to leave Magix. "I think you owe someone an apology,"

"Yeah…" Musa said as she hung up the phone. "Stop the car," Musa yelled from the back of the limo and felt a sudden stop. "Stop by the Crescendian Embassy before we head off,"

Musa couldn't believe that she had been so awful to him and even when he tried to explain she wouldn't let him. She was making a habit of that, and she knew she wanted to listen, but her pride kept getting in the way of it. Musa didn't want to seem like she missed him as much as he missed her, but she did.

* * *

The door of the limo opened to reveal the Crescendian embassy. It was the largest embassy in the Harmonic Nebula since Crescendo was the Nebula's greatest ally, it had all the necessities for an embassy as well as having a lot of extra amenities for the royal family to enjoy. Musa looked at the building and walked up the embassy steps. "Is Prince Daniel still here?" Musa asked the receptionist once she was inside.

"Yes he is upstairs your highness, should I tell him you're here?"

"Please," Musa answered and then took a seat in the lobby and nervously awaited Daniel to come down and see her. She didn't know how to start, but she just hoped Daniel wouldn't make a big deal of it.

"Anything else you wanna yell at me for?" Daniel asked as he walked into the lobby, his emerald green eyes making her feel even worse. Musa looked up at him and got onto her feet quickly.

"I'm so sorry," Musa began as she looked down at the floor. "I just jumped to conclusions after I got in an argument with my dad and Galiena. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry for accusing you,"

"It's okay," Daniel said much to Musa's surprise as he lifted her chin so that she would look at him, but Musa looked back down at the floor, not because she felt guilty, but because it felt a little weird being around him after so long. And apologizing was even weirder. "What happened with –,"

"They just," Musa began not really sure if she should go on. "I might have to come back to Devon Prep,"

"Well would that be the worst thing?" Daniel asked with an awkward laugh as he ran his hand through his dark brown hair.

"So now that I told you, I guess I should be getting back to Alfea," Musa said, still not looking up at Daniel. She turned around to leave, but Daniel swiftly stopped her.

"Do you remember my fifth birthday," Daniel said, she didn't know where he was going with this, but she turned around and decided to listen. She knew she wanted to hear him out and have him back in her life so it was probably time to stop being so stubborn. "You came to the palace like a week early because we were so excited. Then on my birthday everyone showed up but my parents didn't bother show up and I didn't come outta my room for like two hours,"

"Yeah, you were hauled up there crying like a girl," Musa teased. She had remembered that day and she had been looking back to days like that lately. He was always such a big part of her life.

"And when the maid managed to pick the lock, you came in and told me that it didn't matter that they weren't there," Daniel said finally looking up from the ground and looking straight into Musa's eyes and for the first time Musa felt like everything could maybe get back to normal, he could go back to being her best friend and everything else could just be done with. "Because you told me that you were the only family I would ever need and then you gave me that stuffed animal rabbit that you could never let go to make me feel better."

Musa stood silently and listened to him recount the day. It was probably one of the few times she had ever seen him cry in his life. He prided himself on not caring about the fact that his parents didn't care for him, but she knew it hurt him deeply that they never gave a second thought to their own son. "I still have bunny, as you so creatively named it, and I always knew that you were going to be there when nobody else would be. But now it's like all of it's been thrown away and I don't know what to do,"

"No, you threw it away Daniel. Not me!" Did he still not get it! All those stories meant nothing unless he understood what he did, he wasn't just going to get away with telling her a bunch of nostalgic memories weren't going to change it unless he really felt remorse for everything. Musa turned around and continued her way back when she heard Daniel to talk again, except she wasn't going to stop to listen.

"We could have broken up in a much more peaceful way," Daniel began again as Musa began to walk away. "I get it, it's not about the fact that we had feelings for other people, I mean it's part of it, but you're angry for everything I broke. And I know it's not your heart because I also know that it was never mine,"

"What do you want?" Musa quipped angrily as she turned around and walked right back up to him. "Are you going to try to blame this all on me again, because quite frankly I don't care what you do anymore,"

"No Musa, you're angry because I put a stupid one night stand in front of our relationship. I could have stopped, but instead I was going to let everything we have, our life long relationship fall apart for one night." Daniel pointed out and finally got Musa to stop her gait.. She looked at Daniel a little surprised that he had managed to figure this out on his own. And almost as if a huge weight had been lifted, Musa felt so relived to finally have a start back at friendship with Daniel. "Because I made you feel like an outsider in a place where you will always be loved, I'm sorry Musa,"

"Daniel…" Musa said looking up at Daniel and feeling like bits and pieces of her life were starting to come back together. She couldn't say anything more, this was all hitting her so fast and even though he was the one who needed to apologize, she did feel guilty. On some level she had always known Daniel never meant to hurt her, but her anger wouldn't let her see it.

"I'm sorry Musa, I never wanted to hurt you," He explained as he moved closer to her and then pulling her into a hug. "You know I still love you, I always will,"

Musa smiled and let him embrace her as tears began to roll down the sides of her cheeks. She had been hoping for months for this, for her life to finally get back on track after being majorly derailed from their breakup. "I missed you…jackass," She said with a slight laugh into his chest.

"I don't have to be back home till tomorrow," Daniel said through a chuckle pulling away from her. "Wanna stay for awhile, catch up?"

"I thought you were in a hurry," Musa said looking up at him questioningly. "When I was over at your dorm, you practically left before I did,"

"I wasn't exactly in the mood for a lecture," Daniel said. "Sorry, but my dad called and apparently I'm needed at some press conference to discuss some new hospital that's opening in the capital city,"

"Oh,"

"Yeah, come on," Daniel said grabbing her hand and leading her over to the table that was out on the balcony. It overlooked the city and it was a great place to talk. Daniel put his arm around Musa and looked down at her. "Let's talk, what's new? You know besides leaving Alfea that is,"

"Not funny," Musa said leaning into him with a pout. "I can't believe I might have to leave, and now my dad put me on a major guilt trip,"

"As is the royal way," Daniel commented as he and Musa walked out on the balcony to talk.

* * *

_1. She doesn't deserve it. If I were one of them I would be pissed if she was the reason I was going to be kicked out of Alfea. _

_2. I would think that they aren't allowed to dilute someone's power. That's messing around with their internal biology. That can't be legal, I mean I wouldn't want that to happen to my kid if I lived in Magix, not that it would ever happen, but still…_

_3. I know Bloom says that she hadn't received any calls from Sky, but I would think that after lying to her for a year that he would be calling non stop trying to get her to listen to him. _

_4. Illyria is the place where Duke Orsino lives in the Shakespearian comedy, 12__th__ night. Amazing play and there is a splash-dash comedy made after that play. 'She's the man' – amazing movie!_

_That's the aftermath of 'the day of the royals' and you know I had to let Karen get her revenge. _

_Next up - The Army of Decay_

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	19. The Army of Decay

_In the last chapter Musa's father was listening to her aunt a lot. I kinda wanted to make Musa's father the 'absentee parent'. I mean there is no way that a king has a lot of time to spend with his kids. So since he doesn't have time to spend with Musa, he employed the help of her aunt and uses her to make Musa more of a princess since he was hardly a good example. So that way she could one day grow up and be a great queen. .That's why her dad was so willing to listen to her aunt. _

_Anyway, back to the story…_

**The Army of Decay**

The Crescendian Embassy was a buzz when some of the staff walked into the upper lounge to see the princess of the Harmonic Nebula asleep comfortably on the couch, nestled in the arms of the prince of Crescendo. What was a completely innocent night, that consisted of talking and eating had been construed into a million different things, all before either of the two had even awoken from their sleep.

Daniel was the first to wake and notice that he and Musa had become the center of the embassy's gossip when he noticed that there were like four people staring at the two of them sleep. "Don't you guys have jobs to do," He said sleepily when he opened his eyes, as they quickly scurried away to where they were supposed to be. The only people allowed upstairs were people from the immediate royal family, but the workers tended to be less wary of the rules when it was just Daniel there.

Seconds later the musical princess woke from her sleep as she felt sunrays falling down upon her as well as feeling Daniel move a bit. "What time is it?" Musa didn't bother get up or even move, opening her eyes was enough work for now.

"Morning – ish," Daniel answered, laying his head back against the wall and closing his eyes once again. "Hey guess what?" he asked with his eyes still closed and a half of a smirk playing on his lips.

"hmm?" Musa groaned sleepily, still not bothering to move at all. She laid there, knowing she should have been getting up, but the warm morning wind made her want to lie back and relax.

"We slept together…again," He said knowing how lame the joke actually was, but he had missed hearing Musa chastises him for having stupid and inappropriate jokes, and he had missed her laugh.

"That's why I fell asleep so early," Musa quipped back playing along.

"Yeah, I guess I wore you out,"

"That or you bored me to sleep," This time Musa began to get up, since Daniel hadn't given her an actual time except 'morningish'. She rubbed her eyes and began to get up when Daniel noticed something on her shoulder.

"Hey, what's that," Daniel asked looking to Musa's shoulder as she sat up. "I saw that earlier this morning,"

"Examining me while I sleep," Musa said through a yawn as she stood up and threw her pillow at Daniel. He was looking at a bruise she had gotten when the girls had last run into the witches, it was weeks ago, but it was a harsh dark magic attack from Stormy and it left a mark that didn't seem to want to leave. "That's not creepy,"

"It's hard not to notice that bruise," Daniel said looking at her shoulder once again. Musa secretly thanked her aunt for making her wear that outfit at dinner so that they couldn't ask about the abrasion on her shoulder themselves. It would have only helped their argument against Alfea. She wasn't exactly sure what to say to this, she knew telling him it was witches that attacked her and gave her the bruise probably wouldn't go over so well so she lied.

"Defense against dark arts," Musa stated. "We had an assignment and I didn't do it so I was kinda behind, so when it came to the practical exam… I kinda failed,"

"They work you girls too hard," Daniel said. There was a stark contrast between the teaching styles at Alfea and Devon, but that was probably because of the student population. 90 percent of the kids at Devon were royals that would be taking their parents' title one day so the school was more geared to learning law and history. While Alfea was a school for coming into one's power, Devon only had a few classes about the use of magic. "I'm surprised I didn't see it last night,"

"Oh you mean when we slept together," Musa joked trying to get off the subject.

"Hell yeah," Daniel said with a raised eyebrow. "You know you liked it,"

"How could I not?"

"Well I've got a lot of practice," Daniel joked referring to his former transgressions as he picked up his cell phone and checked the time. He then looked up to see Musa didn't find him comment very funny. "Too soon?"

"You're an idiot," Musa said as she grabbed her purse from the table. "Besides, why would I want damaged goods?"

"Ouch, what did I ever do to you?" Daniel joked since Musa had decided to make a joke about their breakup after he did; he thought maybe it was safe territory.

"It was more what you did to someone else," Musa stated. She didn't realize how at ease she was with the whole situation. It had been months since they had broken and since she had found out about him cheating on her and she had a lot of time to get over it. And she had, it didn't bother her anymore that Daniel slept with Laurie. Probably because that was only a fraction of the reason that she was upset, not to mention that Musa never really felt too jealous when it came to the Laurie situation either, which told a lot about the type of relationship she and Daniel were meant to have. "I need to be getting to the jet, it's waiting for me,"

"And it will keep waiting," Daniel reminded in an attempt to get her to stay longer. This was the longest time they had spent together since spring break so he was desperately trying to savor it. "I doubt it would leave without the only passenger,"

Musa smiled at his attempt to keep her there, it felt really nice to have things finally falling back into place. "You need to get back to Crescendo or have you forgotten all about the opening of the hospital?" Musa said in a tone mocking its' importance. It was rather funny when royal families did this, they got together at a fundraiser, ate, drank and donated money. Then they felt like they had done some great service to the world.

"I don't even think my dad will notice if I'm there or not," Daniel said honestly as sat back down and stretched out on the couch and put his feet up. "He won't realize I'm not there until one of his advisors tells him,"

"Get up," Musa put her hands on her hips and looked at the prince as he so calmly neglected his duties, sorta like what she was doing now. "You go home and I'm off to school. Let's, for once, do what we're supposed to be doing,"

"And not be a pain in the ass for out parents'," Daniel said sarcastically. "Who are you?"

"Daniel," Musa pressed on. This was like old times, Daniel sitting around not wanting to do much of anything if it required him to have to speak with his parents, while Musa tried to coerce him into doing what was right.

"Musa," He said in imitating Musa's tone. But after a few more seconds of them staring at each other waiting for the other to break and say something, Daniel let Musa win that one. "Fine, fine, you win,"

"I always do," Musa said with a smug smile, giving herself a look over. She looked fine and was ready to get back to Alfea and redeem herself for the less then perfect behavior. Musa grabbed her things as Daniel began to walk her out of the embassy.

"Only when I let you," He challenged.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night,"

"Fine whatever you win," Daniel said as he walked Musa over to the limo that was parked outside since the night before. "As long as I get my best friend back!"

Daniel picked Musa up into a hug and swung her around like a rag doll for a few seconds in sheer happiness. "So I see you missed me," Musa said through a laugh. She pulled away from Daniel and looked up at him with a smile. The warm spring breeze brushed past the two sending a million memories flooding back of all the time they spent together in the park at school on days like this. There was no word to explain how good it felt to have him back in her life.

"You know it,"

Musa was unable to resist hugging him once again. It just felt so good. "I will see you when I get home for summer,"

"That's too long," Daniel complained as he pulled away. "You need to visit more,"

"I guess now I have a reason to, again," Musa said with a smile and got into the limo as Daniel held the door open. "I'll see you soon,"

"Yeah, don't miss me too much," He said standing at the door as it closed. Musa smiled and waved to him through the window as the limo pulled away from the embassy.

Her trip back home was to ensure that she would be staying at Alfea, and in terms of that, she had failed her objective. But the excursion was hardly a waste of time. She had finally, after months of sadness, gotten on good terms with Daniel again and now Musa was going to try to keep a good attitude about what was going on in her life.

* * *

_No more breaking curfew or hitting people_. Musa told herself as she stepped off the jet and back onto Magixian soil. It was early morning and the sun was just beginning to peak through the night sky. She wondered if Bloom had gotten back to the dorm or not and if Stella had gotten caught since she knew that Stella had probably left the school in search of Bloom even against all of her advisement.

If she kept her grades up and finished the year with no problems, she could probably convince her dad to let her continue to attend Alfea. And if not, Musa was beginning to think that maybe going back to Devon wasn't the worst thing that could happen. She know knew that she could keep in touch with friends and still stay as close as ever, even when they are far apart.

One good thing about a long flight was that Musa actually managed to get to Magix two hours before she had left the Harmonic Nebula, thanks to the time difference. Musa walked back onto the Alfea quad and noticed that the entire dance team was a buzz with news. They were walking out of the dance studio after what Musa could only guess was practice. What consumed them to wake up so early and dance was beyond her comprehension, but as long as they didn't make her practice with them, it didn't matter.

"So how was your trip?" Naurelle said rubbing a towel on her forehead as she and the rest of the team approached the fairy.

"Alright I guess," Musa said through a yawn. She didn't get any sleep on the jet, she had gotten a myriad of calls from Nate, Penelope, Leslie, Duke and everyone of her close friends that had found that that she and Daniel had finally made up. Nate had been the first to know since he was in Crescendo and managed to guess why his best friend was practically walking on air. And from there he had told Leslie who went on to tell everyone else in their circle. So naturally Musa got a million calls from her exuberant friends. "No decisions have been made,"

"Seriously! What the fu-," Whitney began but was immediately stopped by Naurelle.

"Can you keep the cursing down to a minimum, I mean it's before sunrise," Naurelle teased.

"First I can't drink before noon and now this," Whitney complained. "You guys suck,"

"Oh we have a bit of gossip," Ali said ignoring Whitney, hoping it would get Musa's mind off of the current problem, not going to Alfea the next year. "The witches in cloud tower have three new students. Well not new… the Trix sisters are back in,"

"How can they be back! Didn't they get expelled?" Musa had taken a lot of comfort in knowing that the witches were expelled from Cloud Tower, especially since all they bragged about was being seniors. Now all they were was dropouts and it felt good to know that they had fallen, especially Darcy.

"I thought they did too," Whitney replied. "But I was talking to Ashley who knows that girl Lexie, who goes to Cloud Tower, and she said that the witches were back in the school. That's all I know,"

"I guess that school will take _anyone_," Ali said. She wasn't the biggest fan of the Cloud Tower students either. Even through there was a clear rivalry between the two school, a lot of the fairies at Alfea had some friends over at Cloud Tower. Ali however didn't like the school in the slightest; she had grown up with a bit of a prejudice against them. Hundreds of years ago witches were basically burned at the stake because they had dark magic and as time passed governments and people had come to see that not all of them would be using the dark magic for evil. But, some places in the universe still had a very clear hierarchy and witches were considered second class citizens. (**1**) "Ugh…witches,"

Musa tired not to pay attention to Ali's obvious prejudice, she was taught since she was a baby that witches were bad so it was hardly her fault that she had the wrong idea. And it wasn't as if the girls from Cloud Tower tried to show her that they could be nice, so she continued to think what she wanted. "I'm sure they'll get kicked out again soon,"

"Who cares?" Ali snapped at the group. "We have bigger fish to fry, let's not waste any time talking about _those_ people,"

"Bigger fish?" Whitney questioned.

"Yeah, I would tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," Ali said as she pulled Musa away form the other girls. "But I promise you'll love it!"

"So what are we going to be doing about Karen?" Musa asked knowing the conversation was going to drift that way. The two began to walk into the slumbering school and discussed their plot quietly.

"Well if she wants to get you kicked outta here," Ali began. "I say we beat her to the punch,"

"But I don't wanna leave!"

"Okay I may have worded that incorrectly. I didn't mean you, let's get Karen's ass kicked out of here,"

Musa looked at Ali with the uncontrollable desire to slap her upside the head. There was no way that Karen was going to do anything that was remotely against the rules. "Please, Karen isn't going to give us any opportunity to do so. I mean come on I doubt that she would be so stupid as to leave a loophole in her plan,"

"So we'll create one," Ali said as the two walked into the school and over to her dorm room. "The way I see it, she has this coming to her since you did absolutely nothing to start this…right?"

"I guess," Musa said a bit unsure of where Ali was going with this. She knew what Ali was doing, she was making sure Musa wouldn't stop half way through their plan and feel remorse. The last time they plotted against Karen, Ali was the one who did most of the planning and even after that Musa couldn't help but feel guilty. But now, Karen had gone too far. She had actually gone to her palace and told on her like an angry five year old. "I mean what are we going to do, call Tony Soprano and get her whacked?"

"Hahaha….whacked," Ali giggled as she opened her room door. "Okay well I've done some thinking and you know how we kinds embellished on her school record, well why not try it with her legal one?"

"Because she's the only daughter of nobility and if we get caught we're in deep shit," Musa warned, there was only so much they could do to Karen without actually getting into trouble themselves and messing with the law was not something Musa wanted to get into. Besides, the last thing she needed was to get into more trouble here.

"Please, we out rank her," Ali said trying to persuade Musa. (**2**). "Besides, with enough money everyone will keep their mouths shut. I'm sure the chief of police will do what we say after he gets my families generous donation to the MPD. (**3)**.

"I think that's a little too far, Ali,"

"Well think about it," Ali said as she quickly grabbed her bag and walked back out of her room. "I have to go for a quick run then I'm busy till later today, but get back to me," Ali had some unnatural obsession with running, she said that it was the greatest high in the universe, while some of the less motivated students in Magix would differ, she never missed out on her morning runs.

"Fine," Musa said as she and Ali walked in separate directions in the hallway. She got back to her dorm room and quietly opened the door. It was still ridiculously early and Musa figured she could still get in a few more hours of sleep before her one and only class of the day.

Musa stealthfully snuck back into her room, but not before tripping over her own two feet and smacking her head against the desk. She stood and rubbed her head, how was it that she was graceful when dancing, but walking a straight line was difficult? She looked around the room; Techna was sleeping peacefully in her bed, and changed into her pajamas. She wondered again if Bloom was back, but she had no energy to check, not to mention, but she had noticed that Stella wasn't in her room, everything she did made noise. It was as if making notice was a part of her genetic code, she very rarely did anything quietly, the only time she went unnoticed was when she mange dot put up sound barriers so others wouldn't hear her.

After falling asleep for a few hours, Musa was awake after she heard Flora say something and open her bedroom door. The downside to having such sensitive hearing was that she could hear everything that went bump in the night. "Hey Flo, what's up it's like 8am, keep it down,"

"I thought I heard something," The floral fairy said through a yawn and then turned the light in the hallway on. "Bloom's back!"

Musa had figured Bloom would be coming back at some point since she had seen Stella's room empty earlier that morning. "Bloom!" Musa said happily as she and Techna left their room and walked out into the hallway to see Bloom and Stella standing in front of the door.

"You guys don't know how good it is to see you guys," Bloom said with a bittersweet smile.

"Why what happened?" Techna asked as they all walked over to the coffee table and sat around it and listened to Bloom recount her little misadventure.

"The witches followed me home and they stole my power," Bloom summed up into one sentence.

"Oh my goodness!" Flora gasped.

"Wait what do you mean 'stole your powers'," Musa asked. She had heard of powers being lessened through a spell, hell it was a punishment here. But she had never heard of someone having their powers stolen. She did hear about people having their powers stripped when they committed high crimes, but it was usually temporary until a proper holding facility was found.

"They just took them," Bloom said as she put her face into her hands and looked down to the floor. "I dunno how, but now I can't even change into my Winx. I really don't know how it happened, but they are gone and I don't know what I'm supposed to do,"

"We'll figure it out," Stella said. "They stole my ring before, I think we can get your powers back,"

"I think it's a little different, Stella," Musa pointed out.

" I don't think so,"

"I do,"

"Look nobody else is leaving Alfea alright!" Stella said frustrated. Stella rarely showed it when she was vulnerable, unlike Techna, Bloom and Flora, she was also pretty stuck in her pride and hated it when people saw her weak. But Musa could see that loosing her friends made her on edge. "So just deal with it!"

"I never said I was leaving!"

"Wait what?" Bloom interrupted. She looked up at Musa with the same confusion that she had when Musa had found out about her powers.

"My dad wants to pull me out of Alfea," Musa explained quickly. She really didn't want to rehash everything that had gone on her trip home so she would make this quick. "So after you left yesterday. Ms. F told me that I had to go home and talk to him, I just got back earlier this morning,"

"Oh,"

"You don't look half bad for a girl who got jacked by a bunch of witches," Musa pointed out trying to maker her feel better and trying to change the subject from herself and back to Bloom, she would tell the whole story later, but now she was sleepy and all she really wanted to do was get back to sleep.

"Indeed Miss Bloom, why don't you tell us the story," The girls turned quickly and Musa flinched at the voice that they had just heard come through the door. Standing there in the doorway was none other than Griselda and she had managed to catch Bloom's return to Alfea. They were all sort of hoping that her leaving Alfea against direct orders would just be glossed over when they served their punishment, but no such luck.

"What's up Miss G?" Stella said nervously.

"I was hoping Bloom could tell me that, what's up Bloom," Right then Musa had the overwhelming desire to laugh, but she stifled it considering the situation. Hearing someone Griselda's age say that and with that accent, it was like hearing her aunt use slang.

Musa snapped out of her day dreaming about seeing her aunt act like that to watch Bloom try to get herself out of this situation. She didn't know if she should try to help Bloom out since she really did need to be on her best behavior.

"Well… I um, I was going to –," Bloom stammered facing the fear of getting in trouble once again.

"Yes well we have something to talk about now don't we," Griselda said glaring at the red headed fair "You are needed at Miss Faragonda's office and I suggest you not accidentally walk off of campus once again,"

"That's not fair! Bloom was just att – ," Stella began before she was stopped by Griselda.

"I suggest you keep your mouth shut Princess Stella," Griselda commanded severely. "I don't think you want to be expelled from Alfea for a second time,"

Stella was quick to shut her mouth and the girls stood in the doorway and watched as Bloom followed Griselda out of the room, leaving the dorm as quiet as it was before Boom had arrived back.

"Everything will be fine," Flora said in that ever cheery voice.

"Yeah, remember they were really worried about Bloom yesterday, there's not way the Faragonda will let Bloom leave," Musa encouraged as well.

"Yeah…"

"So how was your trip back home," Stella said as she plopped down on the couch.

Musa walked over to the couch and sat down as well, she was no wide awake and there was no chance that she was going to get back to sleep for awhile. "Okay, my dad is still deciding whether or not to let me stay,"

"Okay so we need to make this place look amazing to him,"

"I don't think that's gonna help, I think I'm gonna try to keep my grades up and hopefully stay out of trouble," Musa explained. "But something good did come out of the trip,"

"See every cloud has it's silver lining," Flora said happily. "So what happened,"

"Daniel and I are finally friends again,"

"That's great sweetie!" Flora exclaimed.

"He finally wore you down," Stella asked. Daniel had been in 'get Musa back' mode for awhile and she knew given some time that the two would eventually figure things out.

"No, actually I accused him of tattling on me to my dad and aunt," Musa said feeling embarrassed about the display in Daniel's dorm. "But it was Karen, and so then I – ,"

"Karen!" Techna scoffed. "I warned you that she would be retaliating…"

"She told on you!" Stella said in shock.

"Yeah," Musa said, the initial shock and anger with her was beginning to wear off , and she was not going to get to anger about this. Sure revenge was imminent, but she was going to get her revenge and finally call this war off, hopefully her final plot for revenge would accomplish that. "But, me falsely accusing him lead to us finally working things out and we're friends again,"

"Well, at least your trip wasn't wasted," Techna pointed out. "Now you and Daniel are friends again, maybe this will help in some way,"

"I hope so," Musa said and walked back into her room to get ready for the day.

* * *

Late that day, Techna and Stella went off to class leaving Musa and Flora alone in the room. Musa was in her room, laying in bed thinking about her time at Alfea, particularly about one person when Flora walked in. "Hey Musa do you have any glue?

"Uhh,… yeah in my fist desk drawer," Musa answered as she snapped out of her thoughts and sat up in her bed with a slightly melancholy look. She didn't know why, but she was just feeling down and she didn't know why.

"Are you okay, you seemed sad earlier," Flora asked as she sat at the foot of her bed.

"I dunno, I just feel upset," Musa said and then looked toward her bed covers. "Maybe it's cause I might have to leave… I dunno,"

"I don't think you'll leave," Flora reassured. "We're meant to be here, I just know it,"

"Maybe…" Musa said still not being able to shake the feeling. "Would you ever forgive someone if they betrayed you beyond anything you could have imagined. I mean it's crazy to even consider if they hurt you that much, but would you?"

"Sometimes all you need to forgive someone is the desire for them to be back in your life, if they mean a lot to you then I don't think anything should stand in your way," Flora said. "But, I thought you and Daniel were okay again?"

"Yeah we are," Musa said quickly. When she asked Flora the question, it wasn't Daniel that she was wondering about. Thinking on her feet, Musa made up a quick excuse to hopefully throw the nature fairy off her mistake. "I just don't know if I've gotten past it," Musa lied. She was actually completely past what happened with Daniel, but Riven, that needed some work.

"I think you'll be fine," She reassured her friend after seeing the uncertainty in her face. "I mean if someone is worth having around, they have to at least make an effort to try to redeem themselves after doing something wrong. And Daniel has,"

Riven hadn't done that, as far as she had known he was still with Darcy. Not to mention he was probably tormenting someone as she thought about him. Teaming up with the witches was one thing, but Musa had hoped by now that he would have come to his senses and apologized for his actions. That would have shown real character, but the guys only saw him in their classes and he was hardly ever a topic of discussion. As much as she wanted to believe it wasn't true, maybe Riven was beyond redemption.

But if all you needed was the desire to have them back in your life….

No. It wasn't going to happen. Riven had gone too far with his little rebel act. He had endangered everyone including her and there was no way you forgive someone for aiding in an attack against you. Not that Riven would want her forgiveness, Musa was sure Darcy made him feel very good for what he was doing to the people he once called friends. (**4**)

She couldn't believe that it was Riven that made her second guess everything with Daniel, it was him that made her want to change everything. And now it was like none of it was worth it. Daniel may have cheated, but Musa was sure he wouldn't have done it if she hadn't fallen for Riven or if Karen didn't open her big mouth. A perfectly good relationship was ruined because of that, and even though Musa and Daniel were probably better off as friends, she couldn't believe she had let herself be so influenced by one person.

"Thanks Flo," Musa said as she got up and looked at the clock. "I've got class, but I'll see you later,"

Musa walked out of the dorm, still not sure where she stood when it came to Riven.

After class, Musa returned to the dorm to see that Bloom had just gotten back from her class as well. She walked into flora's room where all the girls were sitting on Bloom's bed as the fairy released some tension.

"Come on Bloom, we'll get your power back," Flora encouraged. Musa sat at the corner of the bed and tried to help.

"Yeah, but the witches want to summon some army," Bloom said, sitting up in the bed as her voice becoming lower. "The army of decay,"

"The army of decay…" Techna said feverishly typing it into her computer. "It says here that it is only a legend, it's supposed to be some army that is created from the decay of all dead being since the dawn of time,"

"Eww! Gross," Stella exclaimed. "Why would you want a zombie army,"

"According to legend it is the most powerful army that can be summoned, but you need a lot of power to summon it," Techna said as she read on. "But it has never been summoned and there is not even any proof of it's existence.

"So the witches might be bluffing!" Musa said optimistically. "It could be a big hoax,"

"Ugh I hate this! I wish I never discovered my powers!" Bloom said as she fell back into her bed. "I wish I never got my Winx or come to Alfea, that way the witches would have never found out about me and taken my power, and I wouldn't be in this big mess and nobody would be in danger…I'm so sorry guys,"

"It's not your fault," Stella said trying to comfort her.

"You can't blame yourself, Bloom," Flora said, but nothing could comfort the fairy. There was a major problem looming and all the girls could feel the pressure.

"I just wish I knew what to do," Bloom said as she paced the floor and picked up Kiko.

Just then her phone went off. The fairies sitting on the bed exchanged looks, over the past few days, since the day of the royals, the girls had been picking up Bloom's phone for her since she wasn't ready to talk to Sky yet. Stella had taken care of her problem since she yelled 'I never want to speak to you again' into her cell phone the last time Brandon had called and then she blocked his number.

But Bloom wasn't ready to yell at Sky, not that she would. When Musa thought about it, there were two types of girls and their differences were best seen when they were betrayed. There were the girls that were like Musa and Stella that got angry and contemplated revenge, and then there were girls like Bloom, Flora and Techna. They were a lot more timid and they tended to take betrayal hard. They became sad and depressed. So, Stella and Musa had mainly been taking turns picking up Sky's calls and coming up with snarky comments to feed him before hanging up abruptly.

It was rude and immature, and the two princesses would have it no other way. "Bloom's room, how may I help you," Stella said in her cheeriest voice. Musa looked to Bloom, who wasn't even paying attention because it had happened so many times, and smiled. She knew Bloom would eventually get over this, but it was fun to mess with Sky in the mean time.

"Uhh.. hey Stella, is Bloom there," Musa overheard from the phone, probably because Stella put it on speakerphone.

"I'm sorry Bloom is unavailable right now,"

"The receptionist act," Musa said to Flora as the two sat silently listening to the conversation. "I think I already did this one a couple of days ago…"

"Well gotta go, Brandon or Prince Sky or whoever you are," Stella said rudely and then hung up the phone.

"Nice fade away Stel," Musa said. "I think I would have gone with something a bit less subtle, but I'll get the next one I guess,"

The two shared a quick laugh and then looked up to notice that Bloom had left the room. "Should we go see if she's alright?" Techna asked when the fairy was out in the hallway.

"Nah, I think she needs some time alone for right now," Flora answered.

"Yeah, Flora's right," Musa agreed as she stood up and began to leave the room as well.

"And where are you going?" Stella questioned with a questioning grin on her face.

"Out,"

"With?"

"Why does it matter?" Musa asked. She was only going out with Ali, but it was fun messing with Stella a little. She knew Stella was hoping it was a boy that she had met and was now dating.

"Please tell me it's a boy you met,"

"Fine, I'm going out with a guy," Musa said grabbing her things as she walked through the open doorway.

"Really!" Stella said perking up with excitement.

"No," Musa said with a fake frown and shut the door with a small giggle.

* * *

Musa walked out onto the Alfea quad where Ali was waiting for her. She walked up to the petite brunette and smiled. "So what's on the agenda?"

"I was thinking a little plotting and a little scheming," Ali answered. "Maybe some ice cream, let's see how the plotting and scheming go,"

"Fine, but we are not going to go so far as to change her records," Musa warned drawing the line.

"Why not?" Ali complained like a child as they walked through the quad.

"Because if we do then she might try and do the same,"

"She can't, she's already gone to the highest authority in your life, what else can she possibly do?"

"Fine, what if we get caught?"

"We've been through this," Ali reminded.

"Yeah and it's not exactly a sound strategy, not to mention if we do get caught my ass if outta here either way," Musa said. "My dad isn't going to take my falsifying paperwork too lightly,"

"You won't be doing any falsifying, the police chief will. Just think about it, we cant get in trouble and if we do, we can just do what other rich kids do," Ali said. She, unlike Musa, had no problem using her good fortune for her own personal gain. "We throw money on the problem until it goes away,"

"I really don't like that idea," Musa said as the two sat on the bus and made their way to Magix. "I mean this is going a lot further than knocking someone off the dance team,"

"Yeah and she's the girl who blabbed to your boyfriend about how you were all over some other guy. Not to mention she made it sound like you were sleeping with someone else and then she went to your castle and told your aunt that you've been skanking around with some big nobody…" Ali said pointing out all the horrible things that Karen had done to Musa. "Should I continue or do you see my point?"

"Fine, I get it, but I'm still not too sure,"

"And now that she has the power back, she can keep going until she's satisfied. You have to show her who's boss,"

"Still,"

" Well we have to at least meet with the police chief, he wants to thank me in person for my families generous donation,"

"Fine," Musa gave in as the two walked off the bus and onto the streets of Magix. The citry was alive with people, little did the two know that the city wouldn't be like that for much longer.

"You're sure it's Karen right?" Musa asked as the two walked through the city.

"Of coarse I'm sure," Ali said almost offended. "She was just short of telling what she did. It's her I am positive of it. Besides, who else would it be?"

"You're sure, I mean I've done a lot of false accusing lately," Musa pointed out. Although if she hadn't falsely accused Daniel, she would have never gone back to apologize and they wouldn't have become friends again.

"Positive,"

Sitting in the police chief's, Musa felt unusually awkward, it wasn't like she was the one in trouble here, but she was never the kind of person to make back handed deals. Ali, on the other hand, sat in the seat next to Musa's humming with excitement. She found this to be exciting, apparently doing things that were morally questionable excited her.

The police chief walked into the office and he was not the image that Musa would think was leading one the entire police department in Magix. He was a plump, middle aged man who looked like he had passed his prime when it came to police work. The bald chief sat at his desk and looked at the girls with a jolly smile; he was a lot less menacing than a lot of the other police men that they had passed on their way in. "Hello girls, how are you today?"

"Good!" Ali said in the bubbly personality that she used to get on the good side of teachers and other figures of authority.

"Well that's good, I wanted to call you two in to say thank you for both of your families donations to the police department," He said, much to Musa's surprise. Musa looked over to Ali with one eyebrow raised. She simply smiled and looked back at the chief.

"Well our families wanted to show how appreciative we are for all the hard work you and the rest of the department do," Ali said sounding surprisingly sincere.

"We hope you can attend the policeman's ball. There will be a lot of famous faces, it will be fun for you and your generous families to attend," The chief said politely. "Please come, a thank you for your gift to the department,"

"I was kind of hoping you could do us a little favor," Ali said. "I mean for our support of the police department,"

"So did he agree to help us?" Musa asked as they walked out of the police station.

"More or less," Ali said. "He can have the false records done in a day or so, but we have to keep this between us,"

"Fine," Musa said, she had to admit, now that getting rid of Karen for good was starting to become a reality, the moral compass in her mind was starting to go astray. But Karen deserved it.

"You put my name on the letter," Musa asked as they walked out onto the pavement and towards the ice cream parlor.

"Why not?"

"I didn't donate anything…"

"What's the harm, now you look like a philanthropist," Ali convinced her.

"Fine Ali, but I still don't know if we should use the records,"

"Well you have till the end of the school year so decide,"

"Good,"

The two left the police department and stopped for ice cream and then began to make their way back to Alfea.

"That's weird, James isn't picking up his cell," Ali said and closed her phone. "He hasn't texted all day either, you would think Red Fountain was under siege the way this one is ignoring me (**5**)"

"James? I thought the boy of the day was Travis," Musa asked with a smirk playing on her face. Ali was about as boy crazy as Stella, except Stella seemed to have calmed down from that lunacy ever since the day of the royals, she wouldn't admit it, but she was absolutely heartbroken.

"No, Travis was a major ass," Ali said sharply and quipped back at the musical fairy. "So that means you would love him,"

"Funny, but I am so done with boys," Musa said only to received a raised eyebrow from Ali. She was so immature sometimes. "I mean for now,"

"I don't see why, you and Daniel are friends again. You might be leaving Magix for good," Ali pointed out, she was very helpful friend and truly loyal, but she didn't exactly have a filter in her mind that stopped her from being blunt about things. It was a good thing at times, but it did tend a hit a nerve every now and then. "If there were a perfect time for a random meaningless hookup, it would be now,"

Musa had never been the 'random, meaningless hookup' type. She found that sticking her tongue down some random person's throat wasn't as satisfying as others made it seem, or coarse others tended to not stop there. But, going past kissing with some random guy was completely out of the question. And even if she wanted to hook up with someone, there was something stopping her and even though she didn't want to admit, to herself or anyone else, it was the same thing that had ended her last relationship and caused her a lot of pain over the school year. But, she still couldn't let go of the hope that Riven was going to change or at the last minute come to her aid. It was all a messed up fantasy, but she couldn't help but want it to happen.

"Looks like a storm is coming," Ali said looking up at the sky in the direction of Red Fountain and Cloud Tower. "We should be getting back," Musa looked up at the sky, it was getting dark out even though it was only late afternoon. There was a storm coming. Musa nodded in agreement and they began to walk back to Alfea.

* * *

Musa walked back to her room after saying bye to Ali. In the dorm the girls were all sitting quietly, trying to stay out of trouble when Musa walked in. "So where have you been missy?"

"Out with Ali, we went to Magix,"

"Doing what?" Stella continued with her motherly act.

"Are we doing this again?" Musa asked as she walked in.

"That's weird," Techna said randomly as she gazed out the window.

"What's going on out there," Flora asked. She had been tending to her plants and she brought a few of them in when the wind started to pick up, fearing that they would get hurt in the storm. "I can hardly hear the voice of nature,"

"Yeah, it's been cloudy like that for like an hour now," Musa said, she and Ali had returned from Magix awhile ago and even while they were there the sky was dark, ominously awaiting the storm. But, it never came. It never took this long for it to storm, so it was a bit odd to see this happening.

"What's weird?" Stella asked looking to the window that had captured everyone's attention.

"Those are ciradel clouds," Techna said as she walked over to the window.

"And that means?" Stella questioned as a few more claps of thunder were heard.

"I don't know, all I know it the current air pressure wouldn't allow ciradel clouds to form,"

"What is that!" Musa gasped as she and the rest of the girls in the dorm looked outside in shock. It wasn't rain that was falling from the sky, it was a mucky substance that was a deep purple color. The second it hit the ground the drops of the unknown substance came together and began forming little monsters.

Then, a foul smell began to engulf the entire area. "What is that awful smell!" Stella commanded as she put her hands in front of her face, still unable to look away from what was going on in the quad.

"Decay, it smells like decaying …" Musa couldn't finish the rest. The scene playing out in front of them was enveloping all of them. Fairies were running to take cover from the foreign substance falling from the sky while others were trying to get the small creatures that it created off of them.

In only seconds the entire school was infested with the creatures. They were crawling up the bell towers, into any cracks or openings. It was like they had all been dropped inside of a horror movie. "Oh my god," Musa said with both hands on the window gazing in disbelief at what was happening.

"Army of decay…" Bloom said with wide eyes looking at apocalyptic scene, it was becoming darker by the second and a few fairies had begun fighting the small creatures.

"What are those things!" Stella yelled as the creatures began to crawl up the side of their balcony.

"They're like little bugs or something," Musa answered, if they were bugs then how come the girls outside couldn't seem to exterminate them?

"They're trying to break in!" Techna cried out when she saw them all over the window. Stella shrieked just as they managed to break through the glass.

"Anyone…an extermination spell please!" Stella yelled to the girls who had all retreated further back in the dorm.

Suddenly, the door to their dorm room opened and everyone let out the same cry of horror. It was only Professor Palladium. "Hurry girls get out of here, we're evacuating the east wing,"

The girls ran outside only to be face with a bigger problem. The army was everywhere and it was like waves of rot were coming from every possible angle. The only thing left to do was fight them, or let the school fall.

"Well, don't just stand there!" Musa commanded as she tied her hair back and pulled herself away from the window. "Let's save our school!"

"But, I don't have my powers…" Bloom said timidly knowing the girls were going to fight without her.

"Don't worry, we got this one," Stella said.

All the girls transformed into their Winx and began their attempt to save their school from the rotting menace. Musa began shooting attacks at the small rot bugs on the ground only to find that millions of them we sneaking through even the tiniest cracks in the walls. "Boggie Blast!" She shouted as another, this time larger, monster came at her with fury. The creature fell to pieces and Musa quickly moved on to defeat more of the monsters.

"Musa unwanted dance partner at 6 o clock," Musa turned to see an enormous beast that towered over her in size creep up behind her. Made entirely of the same rot that created the other, much smaller, monsters. Musa stood in shock at the beast that let out a ghastly wail, unable to move. Luckily, Techna was there an managed to get rid of the one for her, it was just enough to snap Musa out of her trance and back into the fight.

Musa looked at the monsters that she had just defeated with pride, she then turned her head for a quick second to see how her friends were fairing, the girls of Alfea seemed to have a good hold on the monsters and it even looked like they were winning. Then, not a second later, she turned her head to see the pile of rot remains that she had just defeated began to reform until it was an even bigger beast than she had fought before. "You cannot be serious..." Musa said with an exasperated sigh.

The princess then flew up into the air as some of her classmates had done; this was one way of dodging the creatures on land, of coarse flying had a major disadvantage; it drained a fairy of power a lot quicker than walking or running. But, maybe she could be more successful at beating these things by air. She looked out onto the horizon and saw hundred more of the creatures marching towards the Alfea gates. Musa shuttered to think where these beasts were coming from if they were called 'the army of decay'. She looked out at the Alfea fence was not nearly enough to hold back monsters, the larger ones, with heads that looked as if squids were coming out of them, we able to easily walk past the puny fence that was largely there for decoration.

The clouds that were pouring down the droplets of rot had ceased the rain for a second, before Musa could give a sigh of relief a piecing screech filled the air and a whole fleet of stingray like monsters began to descend upon the school. Musa summoned all her power and began to fire at every monster that came at her in the skies, but fate was determined to make this hard on her, the sky became even darker and the rain continued once again.

"What the hell!," Every muscle in Musa's body ached, the small fairy could hardly keep her arms up let alone fly around the air above the school dodging the air stingrays and the occasional land monster's fist when she flew too close to land. Fatigue was clearly setting in for all the fairies and judging by the army's ability to penetrate almost every surface, it was beginning to get the better of them.

Musa, wishing that she had gotten more sleep the night before and silently cursed Daniel for talking to her so long, found it impossible to fly for another second, landed and for a second she just knelt on the ground in a desperate attempt to regain some of her strength. She looked over her shoulder to see that her friends were still keeping up a brave front even though the exhaustion on their faces was unmistakable.

Right as Musa looked towards Stella, she saw the princess being approached by what she was now calling stingrays. The beats swooped low to the ground ready to give Stella an unwanted ride through the air. Feeling a second wind coming on, Musa sprung to her feet and raced right past Stella and shot the monster to the ground with an sound orb. The slight of the stingray falling to the ground in bits and pieces made Musa feel a little better, up until it reformed, this time into a weird squid-headed monster.

Backing up from the monster, Musa felt herself back straight into Stella. "Thanks Musa," she said between breathes. Both fairies were exhausted, but they continued to fight. "How about we do a quick double team?"

Musa smiled as the two attacked the squid like beast that was standing in front of her. Musa used a sound wave to knock it off it's feet while Stella sent a solar blast at it that sent it flying back, taking another few of the monsters out with it. After a congratulatory high five, Stella flew up into the air and began fighting by air while Musa continued to fight by land.

The creatures melted down into their rotted remains and like water sliding into a drain, they slipped through the very cracks and crevasses that they had entered from. Musa collapsed to her knees in happiness to know that the fighting was over, even if it was temporary, which she suspected it was.

But nothing could wash over the feeling of finally stopping for a minute and catching her breathe. She sat on the ground and leaned against the part of the Alfea wall that hadn't fallen. Her legs trembling from sheer exhaustion and her arms laying limp at her sides. She smiled and leaned her head back against the wall and looked over and about five feet from her, Ali was sitting with the same expression on her face.

"Did we win?" Ali asked quietly, probably the quietest voice she had ever heard from Ali.

Musa looked up to the sky and saw the even though the monsters were gone, it was still dark and the clouds didn't dissipate either. There was more to come, Musa knew it and she suspected everyone else did too. "For now,"

."I hear the witches are operating out of Cloud tower and I heard that Red Fountain just battled these guys too," Ali said after a few minutes of silence, scooting towards Musa. "That's why James couldn't call earlier, they got attacked before we did,"

"So this defiantly isn't over," Musa murmured looking to the floor. She had never felt so anxious in her life, she knew what was coming and even though she wanted to get it over with, she wasn't ready to face the brute of the army yet.

"Guess not,"

Musa and Ali sat against the wall for a few more minutes before they were joined by the rest of the Winx Club. The girls sat there silently knowing what was on the other's mind.

They had won the battle, but the war was far from over.

* * *

_1.I always wondered why witches were so hated, I mean they were practically kicked out when they were at Miss Magix. So if figured that there had to be some reason as to why they were so hated. _

_2. Ali is the friend that has no boundaries for anything. She's not a bad person ,but she tends to speak her mind and do as she pleases. Everyone seems to have a friend like that. _

_3. Magix Police Department (MPD) _

_4. The intensity of Darcy and Riven's relationship is never really specified (this is a kids show after all) but I can only guess that a senior witch and hormone driven teenage boy did more then what's appropriate for a kid's show. _

_5. How ironic…._

_Next chapter – sparks of hope_

_xoxo,  
__princessm _


	20. Sparx of Hope

**Sparx of Hope**

Musa laid in her bed, her body turned so that she was looking out the window. Half of the room had been destroyed; luckily it was most of the common room so nobody's personal belongings were injured. But, her window was broken on one side so there was a board on half the window and the original glass on the other half.

The rest of the room was pretty much the same, non of the rot monsters had made it in here after Professor Palladium put an anti-dark magic spell on the East Wing during it's evacuation. Techna was one her bed sleeping soundly and Musa was sure many of her other friends had given in to the pull of sleep, but she couldn't.

The army of decay had retreated hours ago, yet Musa was unable to get a moment's rest. Her mind was all over the place and when she managed to clear her mind for a single moment, something else popped up the caused her to worry even more.

The army of decay was going to attack again, that was certain. But, Musa had almost come to grips with that. She had gotten to know the witches over the past year, no matter how much she detested the idea, and she knew that this was just a minor battle in their plan. And this was a plan for total universal domination. It should have been worrying her, but she knew they would have to fight again and she was almost confident that they would be able to handle themselves. And yet she wasn't able to get any inner peace

Something else was bothering her and for the life of her, she couldn't figure it out. Musa went through a mental checklist several times over and it was fruitless effort. She had managed to get over all the drama in her life; her group of friends at both Alfea and Devon Prep were all fine. She had close friends that would support her and she even got her best friend back a little over a day ago. She should have been happy. But then, Musa was facing the chance of being pulled from Alfea, but she figured after fighting for the school would maybe get Faragonda on her side then maybe she could take her side on this one. Not that she ever wanted her father to find out that she had fought evil forces when she came here to learn.

Her father would have a fit and immediately pull her out of Alfea and after some of the stunts she had pulled with some of her friends at Devon, she could be facing private tutors and being a prisoner in her own palace. Musa laid on her bed, with the moon light lighting up her pale face and tried to tell herself that it was that that was scaring her, but it wasn't. As awful as it sounded, she really wasn't looking that far into the future right now.

She was worried about her friends at Red Fountain; she wondered how Sky, Brandon and Timmy were fairing. Not many of the girls even knew that Ref fountain was attacked, but Ali knew everyone and everything, so Musa found out early. Stella and Bloom may have been on the outs with them, but Musa truly believed that they were good guys, and their constant attempts at apologizing showed it. And she knew what it was to apologize to someone and mean it, so she had forgiven their lying, but she didn't dare talk to them until Stella and Bloom figured out how they felt about everything. Musa had figured that the boys would be fine, if fairies that weren't trained in this sort of thing were okay, then she was sure that second year heroes could handle themselves.

And then Musa began thinking about the missing hero in the group. Was Riven there fighting along side his classmates, at a school that he had a hand in destroying? By being with Darcy he had chosen sides and it didn't seem right that he would be fighting alongside his classmates that had honor and loyalty, while he was a traitor in every way. Musa tried to keep her mind fixated on the anger she had towards him. She tried to convince herself that her anger was the reason she couldn't sleep, but at that moment she figured out what had been keeping her up and it wasn't just that night. It had been looming over her for awhile.

Musa turned to her other side, putting her back to the window and her arms around herself. Pushing some unwanted thoughts away, Musa closed her eyes and prayed to get some sleep since she was absolutely exhausted.

* * *

It was only when she managed to begin to drift off to sleep when she heard a loud knock on the door. Musa groaned loudly and covered her head with a pillow, she had finally fallen asleep and she wasn't going to get up for anything. There was another knock at the common room door that was then answered by Stella. With a sign of relief that it was nothing major, since she didn't hear the princess of Solaria freaking out, Musa closed her eyes once more and tried to catch up on some well deserved sleep only to be shaken awake once again.

"Musa let's go," Techna said loudly. Apparently she had told Musa to get up five times, but Musa kept ignoring her. "Miss Faragonda needs us in her office now,"

"W – What?" Musa stammered as her mind began waking up in an attempt to catch up with her body. "What's going on?"

"Miss Faragonda wants to see us in her office," Techna repeated once again.

"Why?"

"We don't know," Techna said as she threw some clothes at Musa. "Get dressed,"

The girls walked over to Miss Faragonda's office that happened to be on the other side of the quad, it gave them the opportunity to see what had happened to their beloved school. It was still really early in the morning and they couldn't see much, but Musa looked in horror to see the once immaculate campus was now littered with broken glass and fallen pillars. Parts of the school were still too dangerous to go to since some of the foundation was shaky after the attack, luckily they were classrooms so all the girls got to sleep in their own room, at least for one more night.

"This is awful," Musa said as they walked past the debris and through a cracked corridor.

"Those witches are so toast," Stella promised.

"Let's hope so, I don't think we can survive too many more of these attacks,"

"Don't say that," Flora commanded sternly. "This is our school and we can't let the witches destroy it,"

Miss Faragonda's office managed to stay relatively the same. There were a few cracks in the wall and one of the windows was taken out, but there was no serious damage. "I hope you girls have managed to get some rest after last night's attack," She said as the five filed into her room, Griselda at her right hand like normal, but Griselda left just as she began to address the girls, it made sense since all the teachers were on high alert and they were constantly running checks of the school.

"I have called you all in here to discuss something of importance. I am afraid our little victory will not last long, Red Fountain is going to try to draw the next wave of attacks," Miss Faragonda began. She had a very worried look on her face and the bags under her eyes were a clear indicator that she was having trouble sleeping as well.

"Oh no, they are!" Stella said in a worried voice which was odd since she had made a point to act as if she didn't care about anything on the other side of the enchanted forest, but everyone knew it was just an act.

"But it is only a diversion, once Red Fountain falls, the witches will turn their attention back to Alfea. Their forces will crash upon our walls, but an Alfea girl never gives up no matter how slim the hope, and you Bloom hold the key to what little hope we have," She continued as she looked over to Bloom and pulled the attention to her.

"Uhh… I do," Bloom asked nervously. "But, what is it?"

"If one candle is used to light another, the fire passes on but the original flame still glows," Faragonda began not telling them what she was thinking just yet, she was trying to get them to figure it out on their own. "They can take your fire from you but they can't take your ability to burn,"

Faragonda began to conjure a scene in front of them. It was the desolate planet of Sparx, Musa remembered it from when Bloom was sent their through magical reality, except now it was covered in snow. (**1**) The castle was now a literal ice cube. "You are still the last heir to the royal family of Sparx, you are the only one that can use the dragonfire to it's full potential.

"But the witches have it now," Flora pointed out.

"Not all of it," Faragonda corrected. "In it's day, Sparx was the greatest of all planets and the dragonfire was the source of it's life. But when that flame was extinguished, the planet was cast into an eternal winter (**2**)"

"So since I'm the heir I can go there and relight the flame and absorb the power back?" Bloom asked. "Is that what you're saying?"

"This will be a dangerous mission,"

"Yeah, but we'll be with you Bloom," Musa said sure that Bloom wouldn't be sent alone.

"That's right you can always count on us," Flora reassured.

"We've always got your back," Stella added.

"Thanks guys," Bloom said as she became teary eyed. (**3**)

"I have arranged for you girls to go to Sparks via virtual reality," Faragonda informed. "While Palladium set up I want you girls to get some rest, you have a couple hours before you will depart and you will need all of your energy to survive in Sparks on your own,"

* * *

"I hope the boys will be alright," Flora said as the girls walked back into their dorm room after their meeting with Miss Faragonda. They were told to try to get some rest since it was going to be a long mission. "They had to battle a lot longer than we did yesterday,"

Musa walked into the dorm and laid down on one of the couches in the common room with her arms wrapped around herself, attempting and failing to get any sleep, she was a little bit zoned out since she was getting pretty worried about going to Sparx, it was a dead planet and she wasn't exactly looking forward to trekking through the snow. Back in the capital city of the Harmonic Nebular, snow was really uncommon and it was one thing Musa was really thankful for. Musa was never a fan of the cold, which was why she usually preferred to go on trips to a beach rather than a ski chalet.

"I'm sure they'll be fine," Stella said lacking her usual confidence, as if she were worried.

"I dunno, you seemed kinda worried about the boys in Faragonda's office," Techna said. It wasn't exactly a shrewd observation since she had practically screamed when she heard Red Fountain would take the next wave of attacks, but none the less, Stella gave herself away right then and there.

"Yeah, maybe about a certain hero in training," Musa pressed on, just hiding a smiling as she rejoined the conversation. "Name begins with a 'B' and ends with an 'andon'"

"Please!" Stella said as she turned away from the girls. "Like I could ever care for a squire,"

"Stella, you don't mean that," Musa said trying to keep her patience with Stella since she had a way of making Musa angry. And on big way was by belittling a person because of their rank, she got enough of that at home.

"Yes I do, could you imagine a princess and a squire!" Stella said with utter disgust. "I'm ashamed just thinking about it,"

"Stella!" Musa yelled having it up to her neck in Stella's crap. She didn't know if it was the frustration with everything being so unsure in her life or the fact that Stella was acting like an absolute spoiled bitch that caused the outburst, but Musa was tired and sleep deprived, making her a lot less patient.

"How about you cut the princess crap and get real, Brandon is one of the nicest guys you have ever met and he's totally into you and you have the audacity to stand here and refuse him because he's not a prince, you don't see me hanging onto Daniel because he's a prince and we'd look all 'perfect' together. Well get over it you spoiled little princess and realize that you are letting something great go," she finished letting out all the anger she seemed to have at everything going on in her life and after a second she wished she could take it back.

"He lied to me –,"

"That's not at all what this is about, I could understand you not getting over that," Musa snapped. "You're so worried about what others will think that you're going to let yourself be unhappy,"

"Hmm…sounds familiar!" Stella snapped as she stood up to face the screaming blue haired fairy. "How else do I know that is denying their feelings about someone cause they're embarrassed?"

"Stop denying the real reason you don't want to forgive Brandon!" Musa said sliding past Stella's comment, although it clearly hit especially since she was trying to hard to keep her feelings under lock and key, not to mention she really wasn't sure what was going on with her.

"As soon as you stop denying that you have feelings for –," Stella said before she got cut off.

"I swear to god if you even say it, I will –,"

"Lie to us and say you don't,"

"I don't!"

"Really?" Stella questioned. "Daniel said you pushed him away, and how exactly did you do that?" Stella said shooting back with an aire of sarcasm about her. "Oh right! It was when you ignored him when you were too caught up in your little fantasies about Riven!"

"Sounds like someone is changing the subject," Musa pointed out.

"And it sounds like someone is in denial,"

"You don't want to be with Brandon because you think if he's not a prince you two won't be perfect, god forbid," Musa spat out. "Even though you probably will be if you step off the pedestal you only think you're on,"

While the two princesses battled it out, Bloom, Flora and Techna sat on the couch watching wide eyed, too scared to get up. Musa and Stella were the two most temperamental of the bunch and it was easy to set them off. Stella tended to speak her mind without thinking and Musa threw her whole self into whatever she did and she had a short fuse. These two in one room could either end very well or very badly.

"And you like Riven and you have yet to get over Daniel, so get off your high horse missy," Stella said with remarkable insight, she managed to figure out what Musa couldn't.

"No I don't," Musa said loudly unable to come up with anything else.

"Then why haven't you talked to Daniel since you got back? You talk to Nate every ten seconds, but you can't talk to your best friend once in three days? What exactly are you avoiding?" Stella drilled on. "It couldn't be that

"Alright smart ass," Musa shot back sarcastically. "Riddle me this, if you are so over Brandon then why have you turned down the other guys that have asked you out since you two split? Hmm? What exactly are you avoiding? Stella was pretty good at hiding her feelings, but the look that hit her face was undeniable. "That's what I thought," Musa said as she crossed her.

"Alright you two," Flora said jumping into the argument trying to split up the warring fairies. "Calm down and go to your rooms, then when you're calm I want you girls to apologize to each other,"

Both fairies shot an angry look to Flora, who was so bold as to interrupt one of their epic arguments, and then stopped their arguing right there, but they were far from coming to an agreement about apologizing.

Musa walked to her room and went into bed, trying desperately to get some sleep, but nothing could put her mind at ease. There was way too much going on right now.

* * *

The two hours they were given to prepare themselves flew by without Musa even knowing and when she got up to go to the Magical Reality Chamber room it was still as dark as it was when she woke up earlier and when they went to sleep the night before. Stella and Bloom had gone ahead already and Flora and Techna had stayed behind to walk over to the chamber with Musa.

Musa made her way downstairs, following Techna and Flora's lead, and over to the quad. As the trio made their way through some of the debris and rubble, Musa heard her name being called from behind her. She turned to see Ali running towards her. "I'll catch up," Musa said to Techna and Flora, they nodded and continued on their way to the chamber.

"What's up Ali?" Musa asked as the fairy ran up to her and then doubled over in an attempt to catch her breath. It was as if she had run a mile or something, surely she didn't take her morning run today.

"So I took my morning run early today," Ali said between breathes. _Of coarse she did_ Musa thought to herself, Ali never ceased to amaze, the entire realm was in a panic about the Trix and the fate of the magical universe as they knew it, and Ali decided to go for a leisurely run in the middle of a full on war. "Over to Magix,"

"Ali we are on high alert! How did you even get off of campus?" Musa scolded. She could have run into the Trix and been killed. Or some of those monsters, she codl take on a few sure, but more then ten and that girl would have been out in two seconds. This girl never thought things through! And how did she even get to Magix? Getting off the campus had to be damn near impossible since the teachers put up a barrier, how did she sneak off? "And Magix! Last I heard the city –,"

"Magix is like a wasteland," Ali interrupted talking a mile a minute, with an unnatural amount of hype for so early in the morning and after running back from Magix. Of coarse she was one of those crazy people who got all excited and happy after running…freak. "I mean wasteland, it was like walking through some crazy horror movie, actually it was like walking through the house of wax, you know the one where everyone is like frozen, but they're wax so they can't be frozen and –,"

"Ali," Musa said snapping her finger in front of Ali's face trying to get the girl to focus. "Can we focus here?"

"Sorry," Ali said in the same quick pace. "Anyway, I went over to Magix since we still need this,"

Musa looked at the white folder that was in her hand, which she was now waving in front of her face. There was no way that Ali had just run to Magix to get the file from the police chief. "You went for this! Ali! This is not nearly as important as what else is going on…." Musa yelled as she looked through the file, it was impressive, but none the less, it was stupid to go just for this. "I mean…wow this is…great," She said becoming a little distracted.

"Isn't it perfect? The entire station was empty, which is odd because the police should be the ones all over this whole witch invasion thing, (**4**) Ali said. "Luckily he left these on his desk, guess all that donation money didn't go to waste,"

"Yeah, I mean this is perfect for Karen,"

"I know and now we can use it –,"

"But no!" Musa said snapping out of the day dream she was having about ruining Karen. "You shouldn't have left Alfea for this, you could have been hurt,"

"But I wasn't…" Ali reminded. "So stop being such a bore, besides where do you think you're going?" Ali said as she tapped the nap sack that Musa had flung over her shoulder. "We aren't planning on leaving Alfea now are we?"

"No, Miss Faragonda wants us to go to Sparx with Bloom to help her get back her powers," Musa explained. "Apparently that's the only way she can get her power back,"

"Sparx is a dead planet, you could get killed," Ali stated. "And you were lecturing me!"

"Miss F knows about this and besides there will be five of us," Musa pointed out. "If anyone attacks us, we'll have a team, you on the other hand, went alone,"

"Whatever go to your silly mission," Ali said. "I'll hold down the fort and collect all the juicy gossip, I'm sure there will be a lot to say when you get back!"

"Yippy, now I'll rush back!" Musa said mocking enthusiasm and left with a wave.

"Be careful!" Ali shouted with a hint of concern in her voice. Musa turned and nodded before she began sprinting over to the chamber in the hopes that she wouldn't get in trouble for being late.

* * *

Luckily, she got there right as she walked in the door; she managed to catch the introduction. "Now girls, I have reprogrammed the Magical Reality Chamber to create a trans-dimensional corridor that will transport all of you to Sparx. This is not virtual reality, dangers you will face will be most formidable. There will be many creatures, the kind that inhabited dead planets and many we know nothing about."

Musa began to get really nervous, they had never really been in this deep before, if this was his idea of a pep talk, he was crashing in burning. "Now stand still for me," Suddenly a few silver orbs levitated over in front of each of the girls. "Before we send you, we have to suit you up in the appropriate attire. You see the weather on Sparx is quite brutal and open toe shoes and bare midriffs simply will not due,"

The new outfits they got were pretty cute. Blue coats and winter pants with white trim, it was snug and it would keep the cold out, hopefully making the mission more tolerable. "Remember the fate of the universe hangs on your success, we're counting on all of you, good luck," With that a bight light shown in front of all of them and the next thing Musa knew, she was looking at a snowy landscape.

"So are we here?" Stella asked. Sparx wasn't like Musa had imagined. She was thinking she would see flat land with snow and that's about it. But there was a really beautiful sky, it showed no planets and stars, if this weren't a dead planet, it would probably be a great place to live.

"No Stella, the white stuff and the frigid temperature are just your imagination," Musa snapped.

"No, we are not doing this again," Flora said strictly, shutting the two up. "This is such a desolate place,"

"Eternal winters will do that to a place," Stella said regaining her normal cheeriness, making Musa feel even worse about everything she had said to Stella.

"Okay, we need to figure out where the palace used to be," Bloom said redirecting their focus back to the mission.

"Leave that to me," Techna assured. "I'll use my navi system," She said as she opened her palm and revealed a virtual map of the entire landscape of the planet, featuring elevations and everything. "Okay we go north,"

"That's easy, we just go towards the moon," Stella pointed. The girls began to follow the moon, unsure of how far they were going to have to go until they actually made it to the palace.

Musa was beginning to get tired, so she did what she always did when she needed some motivation. She put her headphones on and turned on her ipod, the girls were told to conserve as much energy as they could, so they tried to hold back on the talking as much as possible.

Just as a new song began to play, Stella began to slow down until she was walking next to Musa, a few strides behind Bloom, Techna and Flora.

"I'm sorry, I know you were just trying to make me do what's best for my relationship with Brandon," Stella said apologetically to Musa as she lifted her eyes from her ipod to look at the blonde fairy, she shut off her ipod and began to listen to what she had to say. "It was low to drag Daniel and Riven into it, I know that you're –"

"It's okay Stella, I shouldn't have yelled," Musa said getting up and looking at Stella as the two trudged through the snow.

"You know it's okay," Stella began as Musa put away her musical device and pulled the ear buds out of her ears and looking over to Stella. "We all fall for the wrong guys,"

Musa would have denied everything, but it was useless. She knew everyone knew about her secret and now it would be pathetic if she kept denying it. Maybe putting her pride aside would finally help her deal with this and if not she could try to act like she was over it. "I doubt anyone ever imagined it would be this bad, I mean joining the crazy witch trio bent on universal domination,"

"I once dated a guy who wore plaid shorts," Stella offered trying to make Musa feel better. Musa looked over to her and smiled knowing Stella was only trying to make her feel better and no matter what she did, Stella really did have Musa's best interest at heart.

"You wild child," Musa said with a laugh.

"And if you want Daniel," Stella said. "That's okay too, I mean if you can forgive him as a friends then…"

"I don't think so," Musa said, still unsure of how she was feeling about the prince of Crescendo. She smiled and then the two caught up with the other three fairies in their pack. And just as she thought of Daniel, the phone that she had forgotten that she stuffed in her pocket began to ring. She pulled it out and saw that it was Daniel calling. She couldn't get herself to pick it up, telling herself that it was the cold temperatures and howling wind that made her not want to pick up, but it wasn't.

_Damn it…Stella's right. _Musa thought as she followed the girls along a steep hill. They went for miles when they came across a huge cliff, there was land on the other side, but the length between the two cliffs was way too long to jump and nobody wanted to change into their Winx, for the fear their wings might just freeze.

"So should we scale down the one side and the go up the next?" Musa asked when they got to the cliff as she looked down at the fall.

"I don't think we'll have to climb back up," Techna informed. "If we climb down, well be at the same elevation as the castle, it will actually save some time. We just walk through the small canyon and then we can make it to the palace safely,"

"Yeah but we have to climb down!" Stella said looking at the drop.

"Just get out your ice pike Stella," Musa said as she and the rest of the girls began to prepare to climb down. Musa stuck a long rod into the ground and tied her cable to it and then dropped the other end down the side of the cliff. "This is just like walking.., it's just sideways,"

The girls began their way down and when Musa had managed to get about twenty feet down she noticed that Bloom, Techna and Flora were all at her side, but Stella had yet to start climbing down.

"Stella get down here!" Bloom demanded.

"I think I'll just wait here…" Stella called back nervously.

"Don't be ridiculous, we may need you later," Techna said as she moved downward slowly.

"If you do just give me a call and send up a flare," Stella said pulling out her cell phone. "I'll just call a jet and meet you over by the palace,"

"Get your ass down here!" Musa yelled as stuck her pike deep into the wall of the canyon and stopped to look up at Stella. "Or you can deal with anything that decides to attack you up there,"

"I think I can handle myself,"

"Okay, but one swipe at your face you might have to get you nose done," Musa said then turning her voice becoming quiet. "…again," Stella said nothing; she simply stuck a pole into the ground just as her friends did and threw a cable down the canyon. The girls smiled as they saw the blonde began to climb down as well, complaining as she made her way down with every step.

Musa jumped down off the side of the cliff wall and began to look at the height that she had just climbed down from with pride. She had never done something like this before. Unfortunately, there was very little time to celebrate, as soon as Stella made her footing on the ground, they began walking towards the palace once again.

* * *

"Something is wrong," Flora said as the wind began to pick up. It was freezing cold and with the wind, it felt like their faces were being whipped with cold belts of ice. "I'm getting a strange cry from the voice of nature,"

"Yeah me too," Musa said turning her face away from the wind in an attempt to shield herself. She could pick up on subtle voice and although she wasn't very in touch with nature, it's cry was so loud that she could also pick up on it. "The temperature is dropping by the second,"

"Oh my god, I'm freezing," Bloom said barely keeping the panic out of her voice. All the girls were beginning to feel like Musa had before the trip, like they were getting in way too deep.

"Just find your warm inner place and keep walking," Flora said optimistically.

"You find _your_ warm inner place," Stella complained. "I would like a blanket," she continued only to be rewarded with a punishing push and hard look from Musa.

"I can't see a thing, I think my eyes are frozen," Bloom said. The visibility had become awful as well, the snow was flying into the air and it was like walking through fog; cold, dense, icy fog.

"Come on girls, forward march!" Techna said trying to keep up morale.

"Can we please stop for a second!" Musa said finally. She was trying to keep her mouth shut for awhile, only because it would conserve energy.

"Yeah I agree with Musa, can we please take a break," Flora asked, she had been trying to encourage everyone, but even she was at her wit's end.

"Come on girls, we need to keep going," Bloom said trying to convince everyone to keep going.

"Yes girls I agree with Bloom, sitting down in this type of weather and in this temperature is extremely dangerous," Techna said, stopping to rest wasn't the best idea unless they had some protection.

"I can put up a sun shield," Stella offered. "It'll keep us warm and we can take a break for awhile. Look over in that clearing there are some rocks, we can sit on them and get some energy back,"

"Putting up a shield will drain some of your power and your energy," Techna pointed out.

"Yeah and taking the break will help me regain some," Stella argued. "Besides we all need a break,"

Bloom and Techna nodded and the girls walked over to the spot Stella had suggested and sat down. Stella put up a shield and Musa laid out and felt the rock beneath her heat up. Closing her eyes, Musa let her exhausted body rest for awhile, a smile spread across her face as the tension in her legs began to fade away. Knowing she couldn't fall asleep, Musa tried to think of something that would keep her awake, since everyone was quiet probably because they were too tired to talk, and the only thing that Musa could think of was how much she wanted to sleep.

"So you guys think we're anywhere close to the palace?" Musa asked when she sat up on the rock and looked at her friends, all of which looked as if they had just run a marathon, that's what a whole day of trekking through the snow does to you.

"I think so, if we get back up in an hour we can make it there by sun down," Techna said opening up her palm once again looking at the map that she had opened up the day before. "So we have one hour,"

"Truth or dare?" Stella asked as she turned to Musa.

"Are you kidding?" Musa's eyes narrowed looking at the Solarian princess to see if she as being serious. "We are on a dead planet with the fate of the universe hanging in the balance. And you want to play truth or dare?"

"Kinda…"

"You realize we can only do truth since we're in a protective bubble that if we leave we'll probably die," Bloom pointed out from next to Stella, the two were seated at the base of rock that Musa had laid down on.

"My point exactly,"

"isn't this just like what you were trying to do when we were in black mud swamp?" Flora asked vaguely remembering this game.

"First time or second?"

"First," Flora answered.

"Yup!" Stella said excitedly, she was getting her energy back.

"Why is it that you must know everyone's business," Musa mused.

"Because I'm a gossip," Stella said through a frustrated moan. ""How do you guys not know this already?"

"You really need a hobby," Musa pointed out.

"I have shopping," Stella said in her defense. "Besides what hobbies do you have?"

"Dance, singing, I enjoy reading," Musa said. "But don't worry shopping is a hobby," Musa said after seeing Stella's crestfallen face.

"I know that, so what can we do?" Stella complained once again.

"How about we rest for awhile?" Bloom asked not wanting to play this game either.

"Or we can talk about what we plan to do when we get back to Alfea, an army is ready to attack and a plan would be good," Techna said trying to stay on point, they needed to start thinking about what they were going to do when they faced the army of decay once again.

"No! That's too depressing!" Stella whined. "I mean you guys don't think anything bad will happen…do you?"

"Well it's a very real possibility," Techna answered logically.

"But, we can do this," Musa said right as Flora was going to start her 'stay happy' speech. "I mean sure none of us have ever faced something like this and we may become very stylishly dressed icicles here on this dead planet, but…." Musa stopped when she realized she didn't have anything too helpful to day. "I really don't know where I was going with this,"

"We can do this you guys," Bloom said as she got up. "I think we've rested enough, I mean we need to get to the castle before dark, it will probably be safer there,"

The girls nodded and stood up as Stella dropped her warm barrier and the harsh winds began to blow against them once again.

"I can't take it anymore!" Flora said after hours more of walking through the snow.

"What happened to your warm inner place?" Musa asked with a slight smile. She didn't know why, but she was suddenly starting to feel more energized. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but she was also starting to feel more optimistic about the cloud looming over her.

"It froze over,"

"We should be pretty close, shouldn't we?" Stella asked after a couple more minutes of silence. They had now been walking for almost 10 hours and Techna had told them that the palace was only a day's hike away. "Maybe it's just beyond that hill," Stella said since everywhere else she looked didn't have anything on it's horizon.

Just as Stella finished saying it they began to feel a huge trembling in the ground. Before Musa could even begin thinking that there was an earthquake, a giant beast began to rise up and the hill that Stella had seen turned out to be a creature and not a land formation. It looked like the abominable snow man from the old story books that Musa used to read. And in the face of the beast all the girls could do for a few seconds was stare in absolute awe.

Then a few shrieks from Stella were heard. "Okay that's not a hill," Stella shouted when she managed to get some sort of grip. They stood still for a few more seconds not sure if the beast would attack them or not and then it let out a huge roar and raised it's arms furiously from under the snow, so much snow in fact that it covered all five girls from head to two in the frozen water crystals. Musa quickly poked her head out from under the blanket of snow that was on top of her to see that the bear like monster was not going to let them pass.

"Everyone okay?" Bloom asked when she poked her head out from the snow. Everyone nodded and looked up to see that the ice monster wasn't quite through with them.

"Run!" Techna yelled. Scrambling to her feet, Musa and Flora began to run as Stella and Techna followed with Bloom close behind. They went back behind a few hills that they had crossed on their way over to the spot where they were just attacked. The beast's towering height made it even harder to hide since with one swipe of it's hand it could make an avalanche of snow fall on you.

Musa ran as fast as her legs would allow, but the ice monster was gaining on all of them and he was doing it fast, the best course of action was to go in separate directions so that he would target one while the others could figure something out.

Unfortunately for the musical princess, the monster had chosen her.

Running as fast as she could, Musa tried desperately to out run what was chasing her, but she was no match for the monster, it was able to throw mounds of snow hundreds of feet ahead of it and Musa was no match for that. Unable to out run it, Musa was thrown off her feet as she felt an enormous amount of pressure pushing down on to her body. The snow had covered her a few feet under the surface and she had slammed her head on something. Musa didn't know how long it was that she was lying, buried in the snow, but just as her vision began going to black, she heard a voice.

"Musa, Musa…. Musa!" A panicked voice cried, it sounded like Flora. She could feel some of the snow being thrown off of her, but she could get her head to stop spinning, let alone answer the panicked fairies cries. "Wake up Musa!"

After a few more second of being shaken like a bottle of ketchup from a frantic Flora and panicked Techna, Musa opened her eyes with a dazed look. For a second she couldn't remember what was going on. "What…." Was all she managed to say before she felt a sudden onset of dizziness and nausea.

"Can you get up?" Techna asked quickly. "We need to find Bloom and Stella,"

Musa got up as quick as possible and shook off the fall the best she could, fighting the dizziness that was now overcoming her, she ran alongside Techna and Flora over to where Bloom and Stella's footprints led. They finally came across the two to see the monster slamming a block of ice into the ground that immediately caused an enormous shake as a fissure began to form right underneath their feet.

Everyone but Bloom was on one side of it and before Bloom could make any attempt at jumping across, the fissure became too large and she was leaning precariously on the edge. "Bloom!" Stella cried out as the red head tried to get a footing on the ground, but only became more unsteady.

"No!" Musa yelled when Bloom lost her balance and fell into the dark abyss. All that could be heard was a scream echoing through the walls of the fissure.

"That could be bottomless!" Flora cried.

"What do we do!" Stella asked panicked.

"I dunno…." Musa said grimly as she turned when she heard something behind her. Bloom had just fallen into a dark abyss and the ice monster wasn't quite finished with them.

Looking to her friends for some guidance, Musa saw nothing but panic. The mission was heading south and it was heading south fast.

* * *

_1.How exactly is that possible? If Bloom is the last of the people of Sparx and the lost flame means that the planet is in eternal winter then how is it that when Bloom was taken there during 'Magical Reality Check' she was fine wearing low rise jeans and belly shirt. This hardly makes any sense since she would have frozen her ass off if it were the Sparx that was taken over by the witches all those years ago…. _

_2. Same rant as before, these producers made and oppsie_

_3. This girl cries way too much. Just saying. _

_4. Where are the police in all of this! They are the ones that are supposed to be protecting the citizens of Magix and they are nowhere to be found and instead a bunch of teenagers and their teachers are fighting the ultimate evil. _

_The next episode – The Frozen Palace _

_xoxo,  
__princessm_


	21. Frozen Palace

_Okay I know it's been a long time since I updated, but I have a valid reason. Classes started at school and as a college freshman I feel it's my duty to do everything my parents wouldn't let me do at home, so partying and being a bit mischievous has taken priority over the story. But I promise I am working on it!_

**The Frozen Palace**

Musa stared down the cliff in disbelief; she waited as patiently hoping she would be able to hear a thud or a cry for help from Bloom, but nothing yet. That meant that Bloom was probably still falling. Trying again to focus on the task at hand, Musa closed her eyes and listened again for sounds waves. Just as she began to pick up a few sounds waves, Musa's ears picked up a less desirable sound.

"Oh my god! Do you think she's okay?" Stella screamed as if the girls she was addressing were down the abyss along with Bloom.

"I couldn't hear anything," Musa said with some agitation. "Aren't you cold?" Musa asked densely wondering how Stella could possibly be okay wearing just her Winx outfit. (**1**) The teachers and Palladium had warned them time and time again before they left to be careful about the cold and yet Stella was just fine in her Winx form.

"Not really," Stella said with a shrug. "I guess when I'm in my Winx form, it gets the brute of the weather,"

"Then why didn't we transform and come here?" Flora pointed out, walking around in all the extra clothing added a good amount of wait to their packs and it would have been nice to know that she could have bypassed all of that.

"dunno,"

"It's because nobody is really sure if dead planets will drain one of their power," Techna snapped in an irritated tone. "That could go down for miles," Techna stated drawing their attention back to what had just happened as she pulled out her trusty palm sized computer. "I am trying to do a scan but my processor cannot even sort all the information I am getting from the planet, let alone see the depth,"

"I'll try," Musa said and then looked straight to Stella. "I just need some quiet,"

Stella threw her arms up in surrender and Musa continued. She pushed sound waves down into the canyon hoping for some resonance or something that would help her make some indication on whether their friend had a chance at surviving or not. But she couldn't get a read on anything, it was like the walls were absorbing all of her magic, hopefully it was just sound waves cause if it were her actual magic being absorbed, Bloom had a very slim chance at survival.

"I can't get anything," Musa sighed glumly, she really thought that she might be able to pick up something or other from all of this.

"Check this out," Techna said as she continued to type on her ridiculously small laptop. "The Sparx army created many underground passage ways before the siege, it was a way for them to maneuver in an out of the castle without being seen to protect the royal family,"

"Okay, what about them?" Stella asked densely.

"Well," Techna continued after the interruption. The tunnels were located all throughout the capital city and there are even more concentrated around the castle. In fact there is a whole underground network of them with small base areas, but they all eventually lead up to the castle,"

"And that means…"

"I have found some of them under the ground we're standing at and that would probably mean that when the fissure was created…"

"The tunnels were opened…" Musa finished finally understanding where Techna was going with this. "That means Bloom would most likely take one of them since it was the only direction she could go,"

"Precisely and since they all lead up to the castle in the capital city," Techna said with some excitement. "We need to get to the castle and then we can find Bloom, get her power back,"

"And go back to Magix, where we can't be turned into very pretty icicles," Stella finished proudly, finally catching onto what they were getting at.

"Yeah, but there's just one problem," Flora pointed forward, her back facing where the girls were looking as she gazed at the scene behind them with fear. "I think we have some more company,"

Musa turned to see that the creature they thought had left after creating the massive rupture in the earth, had returned to undoubtedly push the rest of the fairies down the canyon and face the same fate that Bloom had faced. "We can't keep fighting this thing,"

"Our best chance for survival would be to seek cover," Techna said as she began to type profusely into her lap top. "I can't find any-,"

Whatever the fairy was about to saw was cut off by Musa grabbing her arm as she ran, sometimes Techna really needed to put down the computer and focus on what was going on around her instead of punching it all into her database. Musa followed as Flora and Stella ran behind what looked like a frozen bush.

They waited a few seconds and the footsteps of the beast got louder and louder…it was getting close. "What do we do?" Flora whispered, they had all just run for cover with no real plan in mind, not that they had the time to even think it over.

"We wait and if it finds us, we run," Musa said. They were already pretty drained from the walk through the snow and fighting the monster that they couldn't beat before probably wouldn't end too well anyway, so it was probably best to avoid the situation all together.

The footsteps got dangerously close and then finally came to a halt. Musa's heart began to race when she saw the large shadow creep across the bright snow. _Turn around, turn around, turn around_ Musa kept repeating to herself, and as if the beast had read her mind and sympathized with her pleas, the footsteps began once again, expect this time in a opposite direction. Musa gave a sigh of relief and a relaxed breath.

"Is it gone yet?" Flora questioned a few seconds later as Stella poked her head out from behind the fallen ice to see if the snow monster had left the area.

"Yeah I think so," Stella continued to look for a few more seconds and then turned to the rest of the girls with a look of concern. "Let's find Bloom,"

"We've got to move quickly, the avalanche covered the chiasm completely," Techna stated. The avalanche was caused solely by the monster and it was the avalanche that covered Musa in almost ten feet of snow earlier that day.

"Hey it's cool, I've got an energy sensing spell," Musa said. Musa used the same type of spell she had used earlier to see how deep the canyon was that Bloom fell into. This time she needed to pinpoint exactly where the sound waves bounced back from so that she could find the castle, since it was the only structure that hadn't been flattened by massive earthquakes and snowfall. And since they were close to the palace, this spell was perfect.

Focusing her energy, Musa sent out as many waves as she could into the surrounding area. She wasn't sure if they had lost their direction in the battle with the abdominal snowman so she sent waves out in every direction. "The bounce back is coming from over there," Flora announced.

"That's right, under all that ice," Musa looked carefully at the structure and aside from the mountains that had passed earlier; this was the tallest structure she had seen on the planet. This could be it. "That looks like a castle, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, she's gotta be in there, she is the princess," Stella said happily. "All tunnels lead to the castle. All we need to do is find the royal receiving room and I'll flash my all access all castles pass," Stella said referring to a card that most royals had that basically identified them as first class citizens. It was something used to get into the VIP rooms of all the chicest restaurants and clubs, and it did also work for castles, but usually the royal family would know if you were coming so the card was hardly ever used to get into a castle.

Not that it would be any use here since the castle was in ruins and there was nobody here to be working in the royal receiving room anyway. Stella was so dumb sometimes.

"Does it work when the castle is as frozen as the moons of Jupiter?" Techna asked seeing the many layers of ice that were covering the castle.

"That's when you need a little sun power!" Stella said excitedly as she threw her ring into the air and caught it as it fell, back in it's scepter form, Stella held it as Stella began to gather her power. "Defrosting castles is like dressing for winter weather, you must do it in layers,"

"Nice one," Musa said as the Solarian princess defrosted the entire castle in a few waves of her scepter.

"The winters in Solaria are infrequent but rough, I've had to defrost many a royal residence, but it looks like this one might be tough," Stella said as they all looked at the castle that still had many layers of ice still on it.

"Well that's what fifteen years of deep freeze will do to a place," Musa noted.

"Maybe if I use a power squared function to amplify your powers, it may help to defrost the castle a bit faster," Techna said as Stella launched another attack. It was working a lot better this time; Musa began to notice a lot of water beginning to run past her boots.

Finally the entire castle was finally beginning to open up, but when Musa walked up to the main doors, they were still frozen shut. "It was no good, the doors won't open," Musa said through clenched teeth as she tried her hardest to pry the doors open.

"Fine, I'll just try harder," Stella said determinedly as she summoned another wave of hear.

"Stella I wouldn't heat this place up too much," Techna warned. "Since the entire planet is ice, it could cause –,"

All of a sudden the ground began to shake ice again, before Techna could finish her warning, they all felt violent tremors rock the ground. "Oops… I think I may have over done it a bit," Stella said as she bit down on her finger. They walked over to where the original fissure was formed when they saw massive amounts of ice falling down in that area. Then, Musa heard a faint scream and she ran over there as quick as she could.

"Oh do you think so," Techna asked sarcastically as she and the other two fairies followed Musa over to where she was standing, looking down at Bloom happily.

"Are you okay?" Musa called down.

"Look its her!" Flora said happily as Bloom climbed up the side of the some fallen ice and looked up to see her friends staring down at her.

"Hi!" Stella said as if they were back in the Alfea quad and nothing had happened.

"I am so happy to see you guys, come down her and check out my palace!" Bloom said happily knowing full well that there wasn't much palace left but she finally found her roots and everyone could see how happy she was.

Musa looked around the partially frozen castle and tried to imagine what it would have looked like before the witches destroyed it. It would have been amazing, from the looks of it, they were in the dining room, it was in shambles, but there were still remnants of tapestries on the walls and ice covered painting that had fallen onto the floor, while the dining table itself looked as if it were frozen in time. It was set perfectly still, after 15 years the ice froze around it and kept it the same as it must have been on the day the castle was attacked.

"Let's try to melt the rest of the castle," Stella said as they glanced around the palace. She flew up in air and continued to use Techna's help to melt the castle until the entire place had finally thawed.

"You did it!" Flora exclaimed as Stella flew back down towards her friends and stood back in the palace. It didn't look much better now that it was unfrozen, in fact it was worse. At least when it was frozen it had a sparkling look to it, now you could see the destruction perfectly.

"They really destroyed everything, didn't they?" Bloom said sadly looking around.

"Yeah, but maybe not the dragon fire," Musa said as she leant a supportive hand on Bloom's shoulder. "I have this feeling that it's still here,"

"You really think –," Bloom began as she raised her sad blue eyes to look at Musa.

"Yeah I do," Musa encouraged as she and Bloom began to look around the castle once again. They looked at the hallway and Musa could see Bloom's eyes fill with emotion as she looked saw the place where she once lived once again, this time it was in shambles.

"Hey look at this, we found an undamaged area," Techna called out. Bloom and Musa turned around to see Techna standing above and looking out at what looked like the bottom floor of the castle.

"It must have been protected by some really powerful magic, like the dragonfire," Flora said as the girls all looked at the hallway below. This is probably where the royal family had sought shelter from the attack, since Bloom had been taken to earth unharmed; she was probably taken from a place that was protected from the witches. But, that didn't give them any hint as to where Bloom's really parents were, if they were still alive.

"Maybe you were right Musa," Bloom began. "And it's time I find the dragonfire and get my powers back,"

The girls jumped down onto the lower level and walked down the undamaged hallway. It looked like any other castle hallway, crown moldings and marble floors. It was dusty and cold, but for a place that had been in deep freeze for 15 years, it looked like it was in relatively good condition. "Let's hope nothing's lurking down here," Musa said as she jumped down onto the lower level following everyone else.

"Are we sure that it's safe down here?" Flora asked cautiously as they made their way through hallways.

"Yeah, I mean we already ran into a few snags here," Musa added. "Maybe we should run a scan or something,"

"I already did," Techna said as she brought up a virtual diagram of the castle. "I don't detect any other life forms inside the castle walls,"

"I swear I heard voices before," Bloom admitted. Musa listened closely, if Bloom was hearing something then it made complete sense that Musa could hear them too, since her hearing was a lot better than anyone else's. But, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hear a thing, except for subtle sounds of the ice melting from the walls.

"They were probably trapped voices from the past," Stella said dismissing Bloom's fears. Just then Musa and the rest of the girls began to hear a voice calling for Bloom, it sounded a lot like something straight out of a horror movie. "That didn't sound like a trapped voice,"

"I think I know that voice," Bloom said, not fearing it as the other girls were. "I think I know that voice,"

"What's going on here Techna?" Flora asked hoping that the digital fairy could make some sense out of this, since she was usually the one to make sense of things like this.

"From my scan there isn't anyone in here but us,"

"_Welcome Bloom,"_ Said the same mysterious voice as before as a bright light began to shine through the part of the hallway that they had yet to explore. "_I have been waiting for you,"_

"Daphne…" Bloom said as if she had met her before. Musa remembered Bloom talking about the mysterious nymph that would call out to her in the middle of the night whilst she dreamt, and she had even seen a picture of her that Bloom managed to get from some of the books in the Alfea library. She was not dressed as elaborately in the photos, but now she was dressed in a luminescent fabric with some sort of mask on her face.

"That's a great outfit…" Stella said in awe of the nymph that was calling out for her best friend.

"_Please, we must hurry," _she said as she flashed in and out of the darkness, almost as if she were a hologram or something. _"Follow me," _

"She's the one from my dreams," Bloom said.

"Maybe she's like your fairy godmother or something," Stella whispered as Daphne got further down the hallway and the girls began to follow.

Daphne led them down a long hallway and explained that even though the dragonfire itself wasn't hidden on Sparx, she still had a lot to see here. The nymph led them to the royal treasury, which technically meant that everything in there belonged to her.

Musa looked around the room, it was filled with sparkling jewels and other expensive things, it looked like everything was thrown in her on random since there were heaps of jewels just lying on the floor, there was no particular order to them and it didn't look like there was much security once you got into the room, the only major obstacle was getting in. This was probably the only place that would have been a safe place to keep the family's heirlooms and jewels during the attack.

Musa had never actually seen her royal treasury room, even though she was the next to inherit it. It was custom for the heir to not see the room until they were taking the throne, but since Bloom was the only left of her people, it made sense that she should see it. The funny thing was she had seen the Crescendian treasury vault, it was when she and Daniel were exploring his castle in the capital city. The two always managed to get themselves in trouble doing that kind of thing and just a second after they managed to get into the vault, their nannies pulled them away and put them straight back in the play room.

Musa smiled at the memory and looked to her phone, which had been going off non stop for the past couple of minutes, she knew who it was and Musa knew Stella was right when she silenced it once again. For some reason she just couldn't seem to get herself to talk to Daniel, even though they had become friends once again. She told herself that it was because she was on a dangerous mission and that if he found out he would only worry and freak out, but there was a different reason.

"Whoa, this is all mine," Bloom said snapping Musa out of her thoughts.

"Looks like Bloom is going to be living large," Musa said silencing her phone and shoving it back into her pocket, she was going to deal with one dilemma at a time.

"Yeah this is my kind of room," Stella said in excitement as she gazed at all the jewels in the room. Musa continued to look around the room and watched as Bloom walked up to a pedestal and saw her crown. It looked nothing like the kind Musa had ever seen before, it was very simple, while hers was very elaborate with opulent jewels and intricate design and really weighed down her head when she wore it. But of coarse the people Sparx were known to lead more simple lives, it even showed in their royalty and the way they chose to live.

As Bloom looked over the crown, Daphne began to fill them all in on why Bloom was taken to earth. She was taken there for her own protection during the attack on Sparx and it was her destiny to come back to Sparx and reclaim her planet, how she was going to do that, especially now, was still a huge mystery.

"I just can't believe this," Bloom said through tears that came streaming down her face. "I messed everything up," the truth was that Bloom really had messed everything up, now the entire fate of the universe was in jeopardy because Bloom hadn't made the best decisions, not that Musa was blaming her, but there was a certain amount of validity to what Bloom was crying about.

Daphne then told Bloom not to worry and that if she looked for the Dragonfire she would find it, and then she disappeared. All in all they had come to Sparx and found out absolutely nothing. Musa couldn't help but be a little angry at the situation. They had walked miles in the snow since the crack of dawn to find the castle, they ran into the abominable snowman, and then when they finally managed to track down Daphne and get a little information, they found out that the Dragonfire wasn't even on Sparx. Forcing her tired legs to keep going, Musa kept walking towards the exit of the castle when she realized that they had absolutely no way to get home.

"Guys, how exactly are we supposed to get back to Alfea?" Musa asked. The trans -dimensional portal was a one way thing and Faragonda gave them all the details they needed expect of coarse how to get back to Alfea. Musa had thought of this earlier, but she figured that if they tried some type of power convergence that they could get off the planet on their own and hopefully land on a neighboring one, but that was assuming Bloom was going to get her powers back since convergence hardly ever worked when one person wasn't contributing magic.

"Oh no," Techna said stopping in her tracks in the middle of the castle. "I have no idea, we can't get back through a portal and we would need more magic to do a convergence, we have no type of transportation and the gravitation field here is much too high to try to fly against…"

"Okay calm down," Flora said to Techna as she and the rest of the girls continued on their way out of the castle and Techna trailed along behind them. "We will find a way,"

"Yeah, I'm sure Miss F wouldn't leave us high and dry," Stella said not seeming to be at all worried about how they were going to be getting back to Alfea. "I mean she's probably gonna send someone to pick us up,"

"To a place where not even the dumbest risk takers will go," Musa pointed out. There was a reason this was called a dead planet, nobody wanted to try to endure all the different types of obstacles that came along with getting to Sparx, the girls were lucky to be able to use the portal, since one of those types of portals is very uncommon and Alfea's is one of a kind. "I don't think so,"

"Well that's what we have heroes in training for," Stella said. "They need some preparation for their dangerous mission and we need a ride back to Alfea, win – win, maybe we could even get some hot seniors to pick us up. Have you guys seen Jason Warren recently, I mean he has such a hot body and I think I've seen him stealing a few glances over to you, Mu -," (**2**)

"We'll figure something out," Bloom reassured the girls as she cut Stella off, there was no need to go off on a tangent about how hot Jason Warren looked in his uniform or anything like that. "Daphne said that if I look for my powers that I should find them, so I guess all I have to do is look,"

"So where are you supposed to look for it?" Stella questioned.

"I dunno, but I'll find it," Bloom answered determinedly even though she didn't have the slightest clue as to where to look. "I know I will,"

"Off topic I know, but what about the fabulous jewelry," Stella ventured.

"I think Stella has an eye on a few things in there," Musa teased.

"What? You know I can't get into my treasury until coronation," Stella said to Musa. "Besides, there isn't anything you saw that you might want in there?"

"Okay, after I reclaim the throne you can take your pick," Bloom said knowing how unlikely the chances were for her to actually get Sparx back up to it's former glory, but still with all the optimism in the universe. "But for now, let's go pay a visit to those witches,"

The girls agreed and then looked at each other with the same question in their minds, how exactly were they going to get off the planet? Before they could even begin to contemplate how they were going to leave, they heard a familiar roar from the hills where they had fought the snow monster.

"Uh no," Stella said in a near panic. Musa looked to see the monster along with a million other creatures surrounding it. "It looks like Mr. Abominable brought his possy,"

"Those are ice crabs," Bloom yelled in the same panicked voice, the . "They can freeze fairies,"

"Then let's make crab cakes, I know a great recipe," Stella said trying to psyche up the girls, but it only made Musa feel a little embarrassed for Stella. Did she really just say that? "Let's get cooking girls!" Yeah….not one of her best pep talks.

The girls transformed into their Winx and once Musa was transformed she realized that she wasn't really that cold. She flew up in the air and got a bird's eye view of the situation and saw what they were up against and it wasn't good, especially since one bite from those crabs would freeze a fairy in a matter of seconds.

"First you have to crush them," Stella yelled from a few feet away. Hopefully they would be as easy to crush as

"I can handle that," Musa assured. "With a sonic blast," Musa summoned her power and threw a powerful attack straight at all the crabs. Doing an air attack was probably the safest thing she could do since getting in contact with the crabs was very dangerous. Musa watched proudly as the sound waves carried the crabs straight off their feet, making them lose all the control they had on the situation.

"I'll take care of the rest," Flora said straight after Musa knocked the crabs off their feet. "Terradactal vines," She shouted as vines came through the snow and began to crush the small crabs into tiny little ice cubes. "They're ready Stella! Turn on the heat," Flora called for he next phase of their attack.

Stella nodded and began to spin her scepter and radiate heat from it. "Time to melt some ice cubes," Stella slammed her scepter into the ground and the heat melted the crabs. Musa let out a quick laugh of happiness only to stop when she saw more of them coming from the horizon.

"No way there's more of them!" Stella groaned loudly.

Techna then tried her hand at getting rid of them by doing some deletion spell. "Off they go, to the big recycling bin in the sky," She said proudly, but, after she finished flying over the icy crustaceans and succeeded in defeating a few of them, she looked up and saw what everyone else was staring at.

"Look there's more!" Flora called out. Musa landed back on the ground and looked out onto the horizon and saw hundred more of the crabs coming right at them, full speed.

"There are too many of them, come on girls, follow me," Techna shouted and began flying away. "Let's see if we can find cover in the castle,"

The girls ran into the castle as quickly as they could. Once inside Musa ran to one of the large gates and began to push it closed as quickly as she could. With the help of Bloom and Flora, they closed the gates right before the crabs could go in and follow them. "Okay , I think we need to attack from above," Stella said once the gates closed and they were safety inside the castle. "They wont be able to get us from up their, we'll have the advantage,"

Musa and the girls nodded and flew straight up, and thorough one of the broken windows, this way they could get the crabs and retreat back into the castle if they ran into any more problems. Unfortunately, the crabs were skilled climbers as well. Leaving Bloom on the ground to go fight the crab menace, Musa looked around almost angry to see that they were going to have a lot f trouble winning this one. "They're everywhere!" Musa complained loudly looking all around her. "They can climb completely vertical surfaces,"

"Musa, try a sound barrier!" Bloom shouted in an attempt to help since she was not really doing much else.

"Good idea!" Musa said as she erected a sound barrier, she hardly ever used these, except for when she was listening to loud music and she didn't want to bother anyone else, or when she was practicing a song. But, this did make some sense since the barrier did also work as a protection of some kind.

Magically summoning the flute she had been practicing on earlier that year, Musa began to play the notes to around barrier spell and as soon as the sound filled the air, the barrier went up and began to knock the crabs right off their feet the second they tried to pass. In combination with Musa's attack, Stella sent out a solar beam that shot any crabs that even tired to sneak past the barrier Musa put up, but there was only so long that she could keep playing the flute until she needed a break.

After a few more attempts at lowering the number of crabs that were coming their way, Musa looked around and realized there was absolutely no use. They were far too great in number to pick off one by one and all the attacks they were dishing out didn't even seem to phase the massive crowd of them. "No amount of music can handle that,"

"What about a harmonic distortion attack," Musa said to Stella as she thought about what she would have to do in order to pull it off. In theory it was a incredibly powerful attack, it not only drained the energy of the opponent but it threw it back at them almost ten fold. But the catch was, Musa had to be dangerously close and not move for a few seconds to summon it, which proved very dangerous in some situations.

"No you'd have to get too close," Stella warned.

Just as she said that, the two princesses look to their side and saw the snow monster that seemed to be responsible for this whole situation, coming straight towards them. With a blood curdling roar, the beast approached the fairies, who were almost frozen in fear.

It attacked with an attack Musa had never felt before, but all she could feel was a deadly chill and before she knew it she flew right out of the sky and hit the ground hard. Upon opening her eyes, Musa saw Flora and Techna putting up a shield, but it took her a few seconds to get back to her senses. And after their shield fell, the fairies had no other choice but to run and fly back into the castle, hopefully to safety.

Musa and the girls managed to fight off as many as they could as they ran through the unfamiliar halls of the Sparx royal palace, but they all ended up in one corridor, completely cornered in every direction by the crabs coming straight at them. "Here they come!" Bloom yelled.

Musa's mind was racing trying to find a way to maybe get out of this mess, but there was nothing. Flroa used her ivy vines to create a temporary door, but they would chew through that in a few minutes. As Musa thought of what she might be able to do, she felt a sudden pain in her ankle. Looking down she saw blood soaking the bottom part of her pants. She wasn't sure where it could have happened, but the pain was setting in and it was becoming a little difficult to stand.

"Ouch," She said to herself quickly as she touched the part of her leg and saw that it was indeed blob coming from it. She wouldn't tell the girls until they were all out of danger, there was no need to put any extra stress on anyone.

Just as suspected, the pint sized creatures began to attack and it was looking bad, especially for Bloom who had no way to protect herself since her powers were gone. As Musa fought off, but when Musa heard Stella scream she turned to see a crab running at her and she was miraculously saved by Sky.

Musa, who was in the air at this point, stopped for a second in shock as she saw the hero nonchalantly say hello to Bloom as if they had just run into each other on the streets of Magix. And then, upon hearing two crashes through the glass ceiling, Brandon and Timmy made their entrance. The musical princess smiled happy as she looked at the scene, not only were her friends okay, both fairies and heroes, but she knew this was probably going to lead to their group becoming a group once again.

"Don't worry girls we're here," Brandon said with might as he began to slice through ice crabs, and if Musa was correct, glancing at Stella every chance he could.

"We'll get you out of this," Sky added as he ran to help his comrades. Musa took that as an excuse to rest since she was very tired. Besides, they could more than handle themselves, they did have the whole day to rest while she and the rest of the Winx Club were walking all around this freezer of a planet.

"Did you hear that?" Musa said to Techna as the guys continued to fight the crabs. She swore she had heard that all too familiar growl once again.

Techna nodded and then addressed the others, with a certain amount of fear that she couldn't seem to shake from her voice. "Did anyone hear that?"

"What?" Brandon asked breathlessly as he looked up the digital fairy.

The growl came once again, except this time a lot louder. Musa looked up the see the giant eye of the snow monster peering down at them. A sudden panic erupted between everyone until Stella finally broke the clamoring. "Don't worry boys, we're here, well save you," Stella mocked as she flew up through the ceiling that the boys came down from.

Musa and the rest of the girls followed, except for Bloom of coarse who had managed to get rather close to Sky in a matter of minutes. And this time there were finally able to take the monster down. They cheered happily and flew back to the ground as they watched the boys and Bloom exit the castle.

"See told you they'd send boys," Stella said to Musa as they walked back to the ship.

"And these boys, how convenient?" Musa said with a smirk forming on her face, but it was covering up a twig of pain she always seemed to feel when she walked out in front of the Red Fountain space craft. Her getting over Riven's betrayal was long overdue, but no matter how much she told herself not to care, she couldn't just brush him away so easily. Remembering back to when she had seen him in Magix that day she visited her aunt, he seemed different and for some reason Musa didn't want to believe that it was him who had been the one who had chosen to change.

Maybe it was just her being in denial, but she wanted to think that maybe Riven was doing this for another reason and that maybe his betrayal wasn't really what it seemed. But what else could it possibly be? Pushing away the unwanted thoughts, Musa sat in her seat and smiled at Stella. "Maybe you should go talk to him,"

"Maybe you should pick up when Daniel calls," Stella said looking down at Musa's phone with a raised eyebrow. "You don't need supersonic hearing to pick up on the constant beeps that thing is making. It's him isn't it?"

"We're not doing this again," Musa warned knowing that going down the 'who messed up more in their relationship' road since it only seemed to lead to an argument. And Musa really didn't want to argue in front of the guys since she had a tendency to slip out little secrets that they didn't need to know when she was angry. "Just talk to him," Musa pressed on and this time, instead of fighting Musa on the subject, Stella simply nodded and walked up to Brandon.

"So what do you say Stella…friends," Brandon said with open arms, clearly having no interest in being 'just friends' with Stella. They walked up to him and the squad ship that was waiting for them and Stella gave a slight giggle before addressing Brandon with a hard look.

"Okay!" Stella said happily before composing herself, it was clear that she was going to forgive him, but she would make him work for it first.

A few minutes later they all boarded the ship and Musa played the flute for awhile, it tended to relax her when she had a lot on her mind. She should have been a lot more calm, but going back to Magix just mean facing issues she wasn't ready to. Trying to keep the thoughts out of her mind, Musa kept playing her flute before falling asleep.

She was finally able to get some sleep and for the time being, some peace of mind.

* * *

_One of my favorite relationships is between Stella and Musa. They grew up in pretty similar circles, being princesses and everything, but they are so completely different and I wanted to explore that a bit more. Which is why I have a lot of small conversations between the two, I feel like they would be the two that were always at odds, but still really close. _

_1 .I never understood why they made a big deal about getting dressed all warm if they could get into their Winx and be just fine. This is my little explanation for that._

_2 .A little allusion to my other fic 'mind games' which I will be updating soon…hopefully. _

_The next few chapters are the ones I've been looking forward too! _

_xoxo,  
__princessm_

* * *


	22. Mission to Cloud Tower

_Sorry for the long update, who knew college classes actually required time… - anyway that's enough of my excuses, just know I am working on this. And this is probably my longest chapter ever, so have fun!_

**Mission To Cloud Tower**

Musa rested her head and looked to the ceiling of the squad ship as she lost herself in her thoughts. The seemingly endless trip in the ship was getting to her and she couldn't keep her mind from racing in a million different directions. Felling a few bumps from the speed of the ship, Musa excitedly waited to get back to Alfea, knowing that nothing too good awaited her when she got back. She had never been one to like long flights, she tended to get fidgety and if there was no place that she could stretch out her legs and that tended to make her very uncomfortable. So the squad ship was literally the worst mode of transportation for longer trips. She didn't mind riding in it when going to Magix or the occasional mission with the boys, but getting back from a dead planet that was realms away was killing her.

With an exasperated sign, Musa leaned back in her chair and turned her head to look out the window, not that she could see much. They were still in type of trans-dimensional hyper drive that Timmy had set up so that they could make it back to Alfea in a fraction of the time it took to really get to Sparx, so all Musa could really see was darkness with a few flashed of light sprinkled in. she nodded off for a few more moments only to be suddenly awakened by Stella. "I think it's tacky to come back empty handed from a trip," Stella said as Musa's eyes slowly opened with joy to see that they were slowing down and landing in the quad of her beloved school. "I mean I know we didn't get the dragon fire, but we should have at least picked up some –,"

"I really don't think anyone expects souvenirs from a dead planet Stella," Bloom interrupted as they all lined up and waited for the door to open, Musa being one of the first to get up. She watched as the hatch went down and with joy she began to step off the ship she was now terribly sick of.

"Welcome home girls," Faragonda said happily with open arms. Musa looked around as she stepped off the ship and noticed something a bit different. As a few guys in uniform walked past her Musa realized that there seemed to be a lot of Red Fountain boys at Alfea, not thinking of the fact that Red Fountain had probably fallen while she was on Sparx, Musa continued to chew over the thought. She had fallen asleep for most of the ride back and she had missed it when the boys reluctantly explained what happened to Red Fountain. "I'm glad you're all safe, it was a brave mission,"

"Thanks Miss Faragonda," Bloom said as they all lined up in front of Saladin and Faragonda, normally this would be to receive a punishment for something they had done, but this time they were being congratulated for a job well done, even though they didn't really accomplish anything.

"So, you were able to help the girls?" Saladin asked as he addressed the boys.

"Well, they were fine without us," Sky answered modestly and Musa tried her best to stop herself from bursting out in laughter, of coarse they were of help, they were the ones that got them off of the lifeless planet that they would have probably died on otherwise. Luckily a severe pain in her leg stopped the giggle before it could get out, Musa had changed back into her normal clothing on the ship and while aboard she had taken some time to look at the bite on her leg, she didn't want to worry, but the area around it was becoming a deep red color and she wanted to go get help, but she didn't want to make a big spectacle about it. Which was why she had yet to tell the girls.

"No, he's just being modest," Bloom defended. Musa looked over to them when something else caught her eye, she looked over to see Kiko running around as if something were chasing him, paying no more attention to it, Musa looked back at her friends. "The boys totally saved us back there."

"Yeah. They should totally get major extra credit," Stella added as she stole a look over to Brandon, who seemed to be on cloud nine since they had stepped on the ship.

"Check it out! Kiko made a new friend," Musa exclaimed once she looked back at Kiko and noticed that he had made a new friend, and the two were now playing leap frog, that look surprisingly like a duck they had seen before.

"How weird. That's Icy's duck," Stella added with the same level of confusion that Musa had in her voice. "How did he get here?"

"Uhhh…… I brought him with me," a low scratchy voice answered as an all too familiar ogre appeared behind the two playful animals. For the first time, the sight of the ogre didn't instill any type of panic in Musa, not that Knut had ever been a truly intimidating creature.

"Trouble," Stella said quietly to Musa agreed.

"It's alright girls," Faragonda interrupted in her unusually calm tone. "The ogre is on our side now."

"It's alright girls," their headmistress calmed them down. "The ogre is on our side now."

"He tried to stop the witches and we're letting him stay," Saladin explained.

"That's peachy kay with me as long as he improves his hygiene." Stella said biting her tongue to keep from saying anything that might be offensive to the ogre species, not that saying they were smelly wasn't offensive.

"I'm sorry if I'm a little stinker than usual," Knut apologized with a genuine smile of gratitude as he bent down and played around with kiko and the small purple duck. "I've had to do a lot of fighting."

"Oh, it's fine. We have bigger problems than OBO right now," Ms. Faragonda interrupted with a serious inflection back in her voice. It was true, they were staring down one of the biggest problems the universe had to face and it wasn't exactly fun to think about they were going to even begin solving this problem.

"Well we are back and ready to help," Flora offered and Musa agreed.

"I have and extra bottle of perfume. You want it?" Stella said walking over to Knut in some type of peace offering, clearly trying to make an effort to try to work together.

Stella, who was not at all fond of wild animals, was then taken under the arm of the smelly ogre and instantly lost the smile she was trying to maintain. "Thank you!" Knut thanked politely. Musa had always been told that ogres were evil and gross, eating the bones of civilized beings, but Knut was nothing like that. But, her aunt had been the one who had told her that, along with the idea that anyone who wasn't nobility had something fundamentally wrong with them, of coarse Musa had never bought into that notion.

"Take two," Stella offered with an uncomfortable smile as she struggled to get away from the uncommonly friendly ogre that was now embracing her.

"Hey, the guys look really down," Techna said turning their attention away from the ogre that was now embracing Stella and over to many of the sad Red Fountain boys.

Well, it figures," Bloom said. Musa looked over to the guys and still wasn't quite sure as to why they were here, she had pieced together the fact that Red Fountain had fallen, but was it really that easy to bring an entire school into the Alfea campus and make it work. "The witches destroyed the whole Red Fountain campus, right?"

"That's correct," Miss Faragonda confirmed gravely. "The boys are setting up quarters here at Alfea." Musa knew that this was a very serious situation and that they were only here for official reasons, but she couldn't suppress the giggles of pure joy that she felt when she heard the news. No matter how she was feeling about a certain guy, the fact that she had a bunch of strong guys from a school that taught them how to basically become even stronger…well it was hot. "Young ladies, the situation has become extremely dire. In my entire career I've never had to deal with anything like this. We have to prepare for the worst now, they will surely try to destroy Alfea next,"

"Once you get settled in we'll sit down and discuss the best course of action," Saladin told them all before they were dismissed.

* * *

Musa's first coarse of action was to sit down, her leg was killing her and now there was a strange tingling moving up and down around her ankle and she knew she needed to get some help, and she would. Just as soon as she knew that everything was calm for a second, since they were gone it was like everything had intensified by a 100 fold.

Musa managed to walk up to what was left of her room and sit down, alone, and look at the bite more closely. Pulling up the side of her jeans, Musa saw the bite mark and the dried blood on her leg, she cringed in pain as she ran her finger over the bite. "Crap," Musa said feeling the tingling sensation once again. She contemplated how she might be able to handle this without the entire world finding out, since the second the Winx Club found out about this they would immediately freak and insist that she sit out the rest of the battle, something that she refused to do.

As Musa looked over the wound, she heard the door slam behind her from her seat on the side of her bed. Musa turned to see Ali, inviting herself into the room, already half way through a story that she probably started the second she turned the door knob. Musa quickly pulled her jeans back down and listened to what she could catch from her story. "The boys are living here!" Ali squealed with excitement and then immediately walked over to the window and watched some of them walk around the quad, almost ignoring Musa's presence if she weren't addressing her in her long winded ramble. "And they'll be here until he job is done….almost makes me want the fighting to not stop."

"Yeah, it almost makes the fact that they may just get universal domination okay," Musa answered sarcastically.

"I'm only kidding," Ali stated and then turned away from the window with an almost longing look and made her way to the bed and plopped down right next to Musa. "So how was the trip?" She said as if Musa had gone to a resort to tan instead of a dead planet to save the universe, did this girl take anything seriously?

"Fine, we're back and the dragonfire wasn't there,"

"Utterly useless," Ali spoke in her abnormally quick voice. "So what's on your leg?"

Musa looked up at Ali in confusion, there was no way that she had seen what happened to her leg since Musa had immediately covered her wound when Ali walked in. of coarse, the girl was really perceptive and with perfect vision, it was hard to hide stuff from her. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh please, you're not nearly quick enough to hide something from me," Ali said as she reached over to Musa's leg to see what it was that she was hiding and Musa quickly pulled away in surprise, not excepting her to do that. "Seriously, what are you hiding," Ali said growing a little more impatient now that it was clear that Musa was hiding something.

"Nothing,"

"Weird place for a hicky, but if that's what your into," Ali said as she quickly pushed Musa back so that she couldn't stop her and grabbed her leg, anyone else wouldn't have been able to move so quickly, but this girl was swift and Musa could do nothing to stop her. "Holy shit…."

"It's nothing," Musa said, trying to pull her leg back, but Ali had a firm hold of her foot and her calf as she looked at Musa's ankle and saw the bite that she had received from the ice crab back on Sparx.

"Nothing?" Ali commented loudly, Musa looked and saw that the discoloration in her skin was getting worse and couldn't help but worry even more when she saw the expression on Ali's face. "Your whole fucking leg is turning purple! We need to go see Ophelia before your leg falls off and you have to get a peg leg,"

"Fine, but you can't tell anyone," Musa said as Ali physically dragged her off of her bed and pushed her out the door to see Ophelia. "I'm coming damn it, you don't have to keep pulling," Musa snapped as her room door shut behind her and she slowly wobbled behind Ali, feeling a sting in her leg as she walked.

"God knows you'll probably run off and hid somewhere if I let you go,"

"Aren't you the one that runs to place that she shouldn't be at in the first place?" Musa shot back as the two walked through the halls of Alfea, passing many of the boys from Red Fountain on their way, and straight to Ophelia's office.

"Yeah, but that served a purpose," Ali reminded. "And we can get to that later," Musa walked though the white doors into the medical wing of the school, which had grown rather large ever since Griselda implemented her mandatory 'defense against the dark arts' class. There were more people in there than she had ever seen before, probably because of the non stop fighting that was going on, but it was still rather shocking to see so many people. "I'm kinda proud, you didn't get distracted by a single boy on our way in," Musa stated trying to keep her head out of worrying about what was going on with her leg.

"Yeah well I have other problems right now," Ali said, still holding onto Musa's elbow and making a quick stride over to the room where Ophelia was.

"Are you worried about me?" Musa mused as she continued to follow Ali. She was never one to show her true concern for people, but in this case she actually seemed like she was nervous, which only served to make Musa even more nervous.

"Just shut up and hurry," Ali said as they finally got to Ophelia and stood in front of her. Musa walked right in front of her and before she could begin to explain what happened, Ali jumped in. "You have to see this," She said to Ophelia and then looked to Musa.

Musa sat and lifted the bottom of her pant leg and showed Ophelia the bite that she had been so cautiously hiding since they had gotten back from Sparx. "It's really not that –,"

"Oh my!" Ophelia said when she got a look at the bite. Musa looked down and cringed at the sight of her leg. Ophelia continued to examine Musa's leg until she finally looked up at Musa and asked. "When did this happen?"

"Umm, right before we left Sparx," Musa explained. "I think it was an ice crab,"

"That's what I suspected as well," Ophelia said as she stood up and sighed. "I've never actually seen one of these bites before, the myth is that they can turn you to ice, but that obviously hasn't happened, yet,"

"Yet?" Musa questioned nervously.

"The truth is, princess, there is little known about the creatures on dead planets, let alone how to heal the types of attacks that one can get from them," Ophelia said. "Luckily, I don't see too much damage here, I will need to draw some blood and send it to a lab to see if there are toxins in your system,"

Musa shuttered at the thought of having her blood drawn, her fear of needles wasn't helping at all either, and the fact that Ophelia didn't know if it would help her heal was just adding to the stress of the situation. "What about her leg?" Ali questioned. "It's an array of different colors, that has to mean something,"

"It's simply the way she was bitten and the fact that it was by an ice crab," Ophelia reasoned. "It's a combination of frostbite and bruising, I can give you a potion that will keep the symptoms from getting worse, and essentially it will keep any poisons, if there are any in your system, from spreading. And it should also ease your pain a bit too."

"Okay," Musa nodded and looked to Ali who had a sideways smile on her face. This was better than finding out that she was going to die or something extreme like that, and the potion would keep her in the same state as she was in now so it wasn't like they were racing against the clock in that aspect. Ophelia handed Musa the potion after quickly drawing some blood and Musa drank ii and was on her way with Ali at her side. "Thank you,"

"But, I will have to inform the head mistress about this," Ophelia stated as Musa opened the door and the princess froze immediately, the last thing she wanted was to be treated like a sick person, and she didn't need everyone going into a panic about this. She had seen how Ali, her more 'emotionally controlled' friend had acted and she could only guess how much worse it would be if all the girls knew.

"No," Musa spat out without thinking.

"I have to," Ophelia pushed on. "This is a serious case and even though it's under control know, we have never had this type of case here before so I need to inform Miss Faragonda. Besides, I think it's best that you sit out the next round of attacks, if they come before the results from you lab analysis comes back,"

Musa knew she couldn't argue with her since she was right, but sitting out while everyone else fought for her school didn't seem right. She almost felt like she was betraying her school by not helping in it's time of need. She nodded and silently walked out of the door followed orders, it was for the best.

She left the room and Ali followed, not too far behind, the potion was beginning to work since the pain in her leg was beginning to subside as she took each step further. Trying not to think about it, Musa began to think about something else that had been troubling her since she had arrived back at Alfea.

Where the hell was Riven? Not that she wanted to see him, but he should have been here if the entire school was dismissed. Musa knew that there was a real possibility that he had left Red Fountain and officially joined Darcy and her sisters, but she still had some hope that he could redeem himself. But now, after all the damage he helped cause, he would have to do a lot to win back everyone he betrayed.

"Hmm…if there isn't enough room in the auditorium, the boys can also settle in and sleep in the main entrance," Musa walked through the corridor silently looking at the ground as she and Ali over heard Griselda speaking to some of the staff from Red Fountain.

"If the boys need a place to sleep," Ali called out to Griselda. "My room's open,"

Pulled immediately from her thoughts, Musa looked to Ali in absolute shock. Had she really just made such a perverse statement not only in front of Griselda, but it was directly aimed toward her. "Are you out of your mind?" Musa said quickly through clenched teeth as Miss Griselda approached.

"Miss Larson!" Griselda said before Musa could even begin to chastise her for her inappropriate comment. "I understand that this change presents opportunities for you to…_socialize_, but I expect you girls be on your best behavior, especially you since you've managed to find yourself in my office quite a bit,"

"I was just trying to help," Ali said dismissively as she grabbed Musa's elbow and moved along, right past Griselda and back over to where Musa's dorm was.

"You really need to stop getting yourself into so much trouble," Musa noted and then realized why Ali had made the random comment to Griselda, it was her way of trying to get Musa to think about something else, it was her way of being a good friend.

"Why?" Ali questioned as the two reached a small bench and took a seat. Musa leaned again the wall the bench sat in front of and sighed as Ali went on talking. "We both know I can always get my self out, now let's get down to everything you missed while you were away,"

"Ugh…do we have to," Musa groaned, secretly wanting to know what was going on with everything, and more importantly if all of the Red Fountain guys came or if it was just some of them.

"Fine but I think there's some information that you may want to know," Ali answered in a sing song tone. Musa looked up at her, as she smiled back with a look of confidence, and Musa knew exactly what this was about.

"Hey Musa!" Another voice yelled as two girls approached Musa and Ali. It was Whitney and Stacy, both of whom were gossip queens and would probably spill more dirt in the next ten seconds than Ali could in the next ten minutes. "When did you get back?"

"A couple of hours ago,"

"Well do we have news for you," Whitney said. "I think you may be happy to hear this,"

"What?" Musa asked as she looked back at Ali, wondering if it were the same thing Ali was hinting at.

"I was just about to get to it, until you interrupted," Ali snapped.

"Well, you know Tara right? Well she's friends with that Lexi girl at Cloud Tower and before the whole school went into complete lock down, the two were texting," Stacy began.

"Turns out that the witches are being held captive by the witches in Cloud Tower," Whitney jumped in. "And they aren't the only ones there,"

"What are you talking about?" Musa asked, genuinely confused.

"Last I heard, Riven was locked up in a cell by Darcy before the Army of Decay attacked," Ali finished, turning towards Musa and bracing herself a bit, not sure as to how she was going to take the news.

"None of the witches have seen him in the cells and there are rumors that Darcy just kil-," Whitney said before being cut off.

"We don't know what happened to him," Ali said seeing Musa's face change expression slightly. At first she was a little offended that they were so sure that news about Riven would be of interest to her, but then Musa's heart dropped into her stomach when she the news sank in, she couldn't explain the feeling, but it was somewhere around pure anxiety that Riven really was hurt or worse. What if he really had come to his senses and tried to stop the Trix, there as no way a person like Darcy would take Riven changing sides, and thus dumping her, well. And it made perfect sense that she would try to hurt him.

Of course there was the more likely possibility that the two simply got into an argument, which was bound to happen since the two of them were known to be very argumentative, and Darcy simply took her frustrations out on Riven and killed him. She wouldn't put murder past the psycho witch. Musa knew that she never really got over Riven and hearing this just affirmed what she already knew and was trying so hard to ignore. She still cared for him and that caused her to worry.

But Riven was no knight in this situation. Everything that was happening to him, he had brought on himself. He had chosen sides a long time ago and he had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with her and her friends.

"Good he deserves it," Musa said bluntly after hearing the news. She looked up at her friends and saw that they were all expecting a different reaction, but there was no way that she was going to be the girl that cried over a guy that didn't care whether she lived or died. She had been embarrassed enough because of him and she refused to let herself look vulnerable again.

"You can't mean that," Stacy said. "I mean, wishing death on someone…"

"I'm not wishing him dead, I'm just saying it's not like he doesn't deserve it," Musa snapped back coldly, still feeling the anxiety that was making her breathing falter. But she ignored it, she knew she could do much better than a person that would hurt her, that did hurt her.

"Yeah but come on," Whitney said and Musa looked up at the two with obvious fire I her eyes.

"Do you two mind, Musa and I have some pressing matters to discuss," Ali said as she shooed the two away and focused back on Musa. She knew that this wasn't the time to be talking about Riven and if she wanted to act like the fact that he might be dead didn't bother her, then Ali wasn't going to push it.

"So what are these pressing matters?" Musa asked trying to sound as unaffected by all of this as she could.

"Are you okay?" Ali asked. "I mean really okay, cause if you wanna talk about it or something, we can. I'm not gonna judge you or anything if you're worried or anything, I mean it's okay if you still like hi –,"

"Pressing matters, Ali," Musa reminded and answered Ali's question at the same time.

""We have the loaded gun and it's pointed right towards Karen," She reminded, bringing back up the situation that caused them to become such close friends in the first place. "All you need to do is pull the trigger, and of coarse let me watch,"

"Ali…not right now," Musa groaned, still not being able to shake the news.

"You can't keep avoiding this, we have everything we need to destroy Karen," Ali reminded as she pulled the file out of her bag and waved it in Musa's face. "I did the hard part, just go talk to her and lay down the law, she's over in the old gym, just go do it, and it'll take five minutes, tops,"

"Fine. But there's nothing too bad in here is there?" Musa asked as she looked over the folder once again, she had not really taken a chance to read all the finer points, but she didn't want the records to have something like murder in them.

"Just the usual rich girl routine," Ali answered. "A few DUI's and arrests for drug use, just enough to get her ass kicked out of here in a second,"

Musa looked at the folder and felt almost no guilt for what she was about to do, maybe it was because she was distracted, but she felt ready to get revenge, finally. Musa nodded and walked straight over to the old gym where Karen was spending most of her time during the battles, which happened to be right next to where the boys were sleeping.

Musa walked in and went straight up to Karen, who had seen her come in the door and for the first time her face lacked the normal ice that it always had. "Are you lost lit-," Karen began to mock.

"Shut up," Musa said strictly, her voice coming icy as she lifted up the folder and threw it into Karen's hand. "I'm talking and you should be looking through that folder, I think you'll find it rather interesting," Karen looked up in confusion to see Musa after looking through the folder.

"These are doctored, nobody will believe you," Karen insisted as she pushed the papers back at Musa.

"Actually, these were written up by the police chief himself and we have his word, and the future of his career, riding on these papers so I don't think he'll he's going to be fessin' up anytime soon," Musa said with a confident grin, it was a good thing that she didn't do this often because the feeling was a bit drunk with power, she could see why a lot of her friends were so, well bitchy. "And these may be a little fictious, but we all know there is some truth behind these offenses, so it wont be too hard to believe,"

"Fine," Karen said as she looked down to the floor and when she looked up Musa saw the vulnerability in her eyes for the first time. "I'll leave Alfea, on my own, jus don't put the papers in, and my family will be disgraced,"

"What makes you think I care at all what your family thinks," Musa asked, ready to employ the plan that she and Ali had worked up days ago, but then she began to feel a stab of guilt, and suddenly she felt like she was no better than Riven. He didn't give a damn about what he did to hurt people and look how he ended up.

"You're right," Karen said as she began to turn around. "I'll be packed and outta here by tomorrow morning,"

As she watched Karen walk away, Musa knew she had to put a stop to what she was doing. "Karen wait," Musa said and walked back up to the fallen socialite. "Look, these papers never have to surface and you don't have to leave,"

"What?" Karen asked in absolute shock. Musa had the smoke and gun, Karen had nothing to fight back with, all in all Musa won. Which begged the question, what was the catch? "You won, I won't retaliate,"

"No, I'm not that kind of person," Musa said, she refused to be the kind of person that Karen had been and that Riven was. "You are never to mess with me again, and if you decide to, these files will not only be on Faragonda's desk, but every paper in Magix. But, you can't leave Alfea because of me, so stay and we can call a truce,"

"Really?"

"Yeah," Musa sighed. "A truce, not a friendship, so you'd better be on your best behavior,"

Karen nodded and walked away and Musa did the same, feeling a little better about how she acted with Karen.

"How great did that feel!" Ali said excitedly as Musa walked back onto the quad. Musa had thought that this would feel amazing, to win and know that Karen couldn't mess with her ever again, but she didn't really feel much of anything.

"I think I just wanna get some sleep for a little," Musa said, still unable to get the recent news out of her head and focus on whatever. She stood up and silently walked back to her room, and Ali made no attempt to stop her or remind her about how important it was to get back at Karen, because right now it wasn't even going to faze her.

* * *

The musical princess opened the door to the common room and walked in to where she saw Stella carelessly lounging on a couch. She was lying there carefully fixing the nail polish that had chipped when they were fighting the ice crabs in Sparx. "Hey, where have you been?" Stella asked as she looked up from her nails and then right back to them after identifying that it was Musa who had just walked in.

"I was around," Musa said nonchalantly. "I was hanging out with Ali for a little bit and I got a little tired," it was virtually impossible for her not to.

"Are you two bickering again," Flora said disappointedly as she walked in the room with a plant in her hand. "It's beginning to get a little old,"

"Aww Flora, always sweet, even when you're bitching," Stella said with a doll faced smile and continued to paint her nails. "Don't worry we aren't at each other's throats just yet, I'd give it a few hours before that happens,"

"Something to look forward to," Musa laughed and put her legs up on the coffee table and leaned even further back until it was almost like she was lying down on the couch and the coffee table.

"Hey what's that?" Flora questioned.

"Oh so will we be hearing Karen sobbing soon," Stella said looking up at the musical princess once again, this time with a sly smile. "I never expected to see the bitch in you, but hey it's about time, I was beginning to think that you were a bit of a push over,"

"Hardly," Musa defended, there were definitely times where she had made herself look weak and helpless, most of them revolved around the guy she was still worried about. "There is only so far you can push me,"

"Good to know, I guess I don't want to get on your bad side,"

"Please, you get on it so often, I've become immune," Musa said as she threw her bag on the floor and took a seat on the couch opposite of Stella and laid her head back. She kept thinking about Riven, wondering where he was, if he was okay, and then she kept telling herself not to care, even though she couldn't not care. When she had put her leg up on the coffee table, the fabric had crept up a bit and the bandage that was on her leg was now visible.

"Did you get hurt?" Flora asked.

"Oh," Musa said mentally kicking herself for not being smarter about hiding her injury, but it wasn't like she was going to be able to hide it for long since the witches were bound to attack at some time and it was going to be clear that something was wrong when she wasn't able to fight along with everyone else. "I got a bruise and they had to bandage it up, it's not a big deal, but Ophelia told me I should chill for a bit,"

"Oh," Flora said and dismissed the subject right there, however the argument didn't seem to convince Stella who still had a raised eyebrow.

"Why don't you get some rest and I'm going to go see how Bloom is doing," Stella said as she stood up and ran her hands over her skirt to smooth out her wrinkles. "She's in a meeting with Miss Faragonda right now, they are trying to figure out a way to get her powers back since she needs them to technically be a student here,"

"They can't kick her out because she lost them temporarily," Flora said in Bloom's defense. "Can they?"

"Well, is her power loss temporary?" Musa asked as she stood up and began to walk over to her room to get some rest. The potion that Ophelia had given her was making her a little drowsy. She got to the opening of the door and turned around. "The spell that they used on Mirta seems to be pretty permanent,"

"Don't say that!" Flora said with clear worry in her eyes, she had been working day and night to try to find a way to reverse the curse that was on Mirta, but she couldn't figure out any way to do so. "Everything will be fine,"

Musa shrugged and turned around to walk into her room and hopefully get some rest. There was no doubt that she was tired, but the second she laid down in her bed she couldn't managed to fall asleep, no matter how much she wanted to. With a frustrated sigh, Musa turned in her bed and faced the window that overlooked the quad and the enchanted forest, and in the distance was the fallen school for heroes.

_Why can't I just forget you!_ Musa said to herself in anger. She had been thinking of Riven since she heard the news and she couldn't stop worrying. And then she looked over to her phone and remembered that there was another pressing issue she was ignoring. Luckily, the potion that she had taken earlier was serving to ease her mind and in a matter of minutes she was able to once again ignore her problems and fall asleep.

* * *

Musa woke the next more abruptly by Techna, once again telling her to wake up immediately. Musa sat up and tried to gather herself before asking what was going on. "Are we going to Sparx again?" Musa asked sarcastically as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

"No, Bloom needs to speak with us and it's urgent," Techna pressed on and threw a change of clothes at Musa. "Now get up,"

Musa nodded and got changed and met her friends that were down in the quad. She walked over to Bloom who greeted them with a nervous smile. She walked through the quad and "Hey guys…" She said nervously as the girls assembled around her and Stella. "Umm, I was talking to Miss Faragonda last night and we think that it might be best that we go to Cloud Tower and try to find something that might be able to take the witches down,"

"Sounds like a plan," Musa said happily through a yawn. Finally something that she could do that would be some what progressive and the idea of going to Cloud Tower didn't leave a bad taste in her mouth this time. Maybe it was because she could see for herself if Riven was okay or not, not that she was sure that she wanted to know.

"Actually you can't come," Bloom said right as Musa was getting excited about going on a mission and doing something.

"What! Why!" Musa nearly yelled.

"Well for one, you have an ice crab bite that you didn't tell anyone about," Stella pointed out.

"What!" Flora and Techna asked at the same time.

"Yeah, Ophelia told Miss Faragonda and she told us when we were discussing Cloud Tower last night," Bloom explained. "And that means you definitely can't come, especially since you need to heal before we all go up against the witches,"

"This isn't fair," Musa moaned angrily, she hated being treated like a child that needed to be taken care of, she was perfectly capable to make her own decisions about how much care she needed. "Besides I feel fine, all I needed was some sleep,"

"Yeah I think we should be able to come," Flora said. "Come on we have been here every step of the way and we should be able to come and help you out,"

"No, you cant come, you need to stay here and protect Alfea," Bloom said firmly. "And besides we can only go with five and the boys are coming,"

"Come on, the boys?" Musa questioned. How were they going to be of any help? They didn't have any powers and they might just run into the three most powerful witches in the universe, since they were sneaking into their home base. It would be really helpful to have more people that could actually use magic in the operation. It was just plan logic. "We can protect you better than they can,"

"I need your support," Bloom begged one last time and right as Musa was about to rebuttal with another argument as to why she should be able to go, since it did make a lot more sense than the boys going, Flora gave in and agreed.

_Damn it…_Musa thought to herself when Flora gave in knowing that she wasn't going to be able fight the girls on this one now that one of them had already agreed, and from the looks of it, Techna was in agreement as well. Before she knew it, Musa was pulled into a hug with Bloom and Flora and then she looked over to see Techna crying. God her friends were emotional, she was never really used to seeing crying as much as she was used to seeing anger and then plots for revenge, it was a little unsettling being around people who were so openly emotional, when she grew up everyone kept their feelings inside and chose to keep a confident and happy exterior and she had grown used to it.

"Aww you're actually crying," Stella said as the four parted form their group hug.

"It's just Bloom's chances of survival are so impossibly low," Techna said through a few sniffles.

_Well yeah, she's taking the guys along instead of us…mission is doomed to start with._ Musa thought unable to help from being bitter. She looked down at the ground in defeat until she head a voice that made her jump. "Never talk about defeat or you'll be defeated," Musa jumped when she saw Brandon literally pop out of the well out of random. "Basic battle tactics,"

Musa and Techna walked over to the well that seemed to pop in and out of the quad over the year, she didn't know why but it seemed like it was there one day and not there the next. (**1**) Then, Bloom and Stella climbed in and got ready to depart. Musa and Techna continued to stare down the well that looked like it plunged into an endless abyss. "Let's do a friend protection spell….just in case," Flora said as she joined the two next to the well as they all stared down and watched their friends slowly disappear into the tunnel.

After sitting at the well for a couple more seconds, Musa pulled herself away from it and began walking towards her room in an attempt to try to decide what she was going to do with herself while they waited for the next attack to come towards Alfea. She was trying her best to forget Riven, so she decided to turn her attention towards someone else that had betrayed her, Karen. But she had dealt with that and she thought she handled that pretty well.

As Musa walked towards the corridor that led to the staircase, she mulled over what she was going to do, she stopped as a loud cry filled the air.

"Code Red! Muster the troops!" Musa looked to the air towards James, the sophomore that was keeping watch in the bell tower, yelled a warning to the school just as she heard a trumpet sound in alarm. All of a sudden she saw just how well trained the boys at Red Fountain were. With a single note of the trumpet or command from Cordatorta, they all lined up ready to go and ready to battle.

Miss Faragonda and Cordatorta had arranged different collections of teams and troops for the impending battles so that everyone would be able to get some rest and so everyone's strengths would be put to use in the most beneficial way. Faragonda had put her in a team with the dance team and the cheer squad, since both were very agile on their feet and able to do many flips and stunts that could keep them from harm's way. And since many other fairies were better in the air, they were going to fight along side the boys on the ground.

The dance team 'troop' was supposed to gather in patter right behind the junior boys lacrosse team, which was pretty nice since those boys were really built so they could not only protect them, but even Musa had to admit that they were not to bad to look at. Musa ran to her position and heard Ali's voice behind her as the rest of the girls assembled. "This should be fun,"

"You're insane,"

"And, you're not supposed to be fighting," Ali said with a raised eyebrow and saw Musa's face almost fill with worry at the chance of not being able to fight along with her classmates, especially after they had all learned new battle strategies and procedure. "But I'm not the head mistress,"

Musa smiled in gratitude and awaited the order from Cordatorta, he was going to tell the lacrosse team when to attack and Musa's 'troop' was going to attack along with them. Musa began to fight along side the lacrosse team when Miss Faragonda ordered the armor squad fire alongside them. Musa walked up to the squad and saw Timmy firing along with his classmates, he actually looked heroic. Musa had usually seen him as Techna's male counterpart and this was seeing him in a different light, it was interesting to say the least, although she still thought of him as the nerdy kid she had met at the first mixer here at Alfea.

The fighting raged on for a few more hours and the systematic battle plans that they had made definitely made a difference from the first time that they went up against the army of decay. She had to have been fighting twice as long as she did before and she felt no where near as tired, actually all the adrenaline coursing through her veins was making her very energized.

"I don't know how much more fighting our school can take," Techna said as she and Musa sat against the wall, which was partially destroyed. The school had taken a lot of damage since the army of decay was summoned. It was not just that, but the fact that there were so many extra students staying there, it hardly looked like the gleaming academy for fairies that she had first step foot on all those months ago. "This needs to stop,"

"Yeah well unless the witches decide that they don't want universal domination or Bloom gets her powers back by some miracle…" Musa answered as she put her water bottle on the ground and proceeded to add pressure to the empty bottle before it began to crumble onto itself under the pressure. "Other than that, I'm thinking we're screwed,"

"You've been awfully negative," Techna pointed out with a bit of annoyance in her voice. Musa knew she wasn't exactly being a shining beacon of hope. "It wouldn't hurt to try to stay positive, it is all we really have left,"

"I guess,"

"What has gotten into you?" Techna questioned. "Ever since we got back from Sparx you have been sad and negative. Do you not feel well, the bite you got was pretty bad,"

"I feel fine," Musa said getting a little tired of everyone asking if she was okay, this was exactly the reason she didn't tell anyone about her bite, And why was it that Stella could be in a mood and nobody would get on her case, but when she was having a bad day she wasn't allowed to be a little upset. "Really,"

Techna shrugged and gave up, everyone was a little on edge since the break in the fighting was only temporary and they all knew that with every new wave of attacks, the army of decay was growing stronger while they were getting wearier. They sat next to each other for a few more minutes before Ali and Flora walked over to the two. "Miss Faragonda wants to see you in her office," Flora said when the two walked up to the sitting fairies.

"Why?" Musa asked with a little concern, she didn't know what Miss Faragonda wanted to speak to her about, there as the bite that she got, then of coarse her future her at Alfea that was in jeopardy ever since he father began to ask for all of there records and files.

"Griselda didn't say," Ali answered. "All she said was that we needed to tell you to get up to her office pronto,"

"Okay," Musa said calmly as she walked away from her friends and over to where Faragonda's office was. Miraculously, that was one of the few places in the school that had managed to incur very little damage. Musa walked into the office and took her seat when Miss Faragonda told her to, trying her best not to sound too freaked out about whatever news she was about to receive.

"So you're probably wondering why I've called you here," Miss Faragonda began as she paced in front of her desk.

"Kinda," Musa answered nervously.

"As you know, your father has requested that Griselda and I report on all of the activities you have engaged in here at Alfea, both academic and recreational," Miss Faragonda began as she sat towards the center of her desk. "But he also asked for an evaluation of you as a student here at Alfea from both Griselda and I,"

"Oh," Musa said feeling as though she was about to throw up. This was not good. It was one thing to have the head mistress write a letter evaluating your performance as a student and a person overall, Miss Faragonda kinda liked Musa. But Griselda, it was pretty clear that the two weren't exactly best friends. There was no telling what she had written in her evaluation, but Musa could only guess it wasn't what she would have wanted.

"Yes and while there are many instances where you have exercised poor judgment," Griselda added. "You have managed to be a decent student and I can't say that you are my least favorite student,"

"What Griselda is trying to say is that you are an excellent student here at Alfea and your father has received very positive feedback about you," Miss Faragonda explained. Musa raised her head and tried her best to keep from squealing with happiness. "And he had asked to know about all the activities you are participating in,"

"Are you including what's going on here?"

"We have decided to leave that out since it doesn't exactly lean on the side of you being able to be a student her next year," Miss Faragonda said. Musa couldn't believe it, they were actually on her side about everything! She was so worried that they were going to advise her father to pull her out that she didn't even realize that she was a good student and that she had really helped out the school when she was here, especially now.

"Thank you," Musa said unable to think of anything else to say. "So much,"

"We only said what we believe," Miss Faragonda encouraged. "You have shown excellence in your studies and loyalty to your school by fighting along side us in these difficult days. And your father has noticed, he has agreed to allow you to join us for another year here at Alfea,"

"Really!" Musa said excited from her seat, all the exhaustion she had felt from the battle had all but disappeared after she heard the news and she was very tempted to run up to Miss Faragonda and give her a hug, but she fought the urge. "Thank you so much,"

"You're very welcome," Miss Faragonda said. "Now you can go back to your activities and get some rest if you can,"

"Okay, thanks so much, again," Musa repeated. She then stood up and walked out of the office resisting the urge to hop up and down in sheer happiness. She walked down the hallway and standing around the corner waiting for her was Ali, waiting and wondering what was going on.

* * *

"So what happened?" Ali asked as the two walked down the steps and through the corridor and into the quad.

"She said that when my –," Musa began when she heard something that sounded like a space jet landing in close proximity to the school, and it wasn't just her sensitive ears that picked up the noise. Everyone looked up when the boom like sound flowed through the air. "What the hell was that?"

"I dunno," Ali said in the same confusion that was going around in the quad. "Sounded like a jet, but the Magix airspace has been on quarantine for the last day, hasn't it,"

"That's what I thought,"

"What idiot would land in the middle of the enchanted forest, anyway?"

Musa shrugged and then looked to the gates of Alfea where she saw a very familiar face walking through the crumbling entrance. "Mystery solved," Musa said as calmly as she could, falling off the high she was just on after her meeting with Miss Faragonda.

"Hey isn't that,"

"Yup,"

"And you guys brok –,"

"Yup,"

"And everything is okay?"

"Yup,"

"Then why is he here?" Ali said pointing out the obvious question as the two stared as the prince made a stride towards the two of them. But before Musa could even think about answering the question, Daniel was already in front of her with a look on his face that was just as confused as hers.

"Hey Musa," Daniel said as he awkwardly gave her a hug.

"Well that's my cue," Ali said as she walked away and Musa let out an awkward laugh to try to clear the air, but it only made things weirder.

"So what are you doing here?" Musa asked as the two stood in the middle of the quad, putting on a show for everyone that was there.

"What are you doing here?" Daniel questioned back. "We radioed in to Magix International and everything was closed and then I land in a practical war zone, what the hell is going on?"

"Nothing I can't handle," Musa snapped, not sure why she was so on edge about seeing him, he was always so easy to talk to.

"I never said you couldn't," Daniel shot back, this time a bit of irritation crept through his cool cover. "But it's not like I would know what's going on with you since you decided that you don't want to pick up my calls or even talk to me. Are you still angry?"

"No!" Musa said in a loud voice not noticing that the two were getting a bit loud in the center of the quad. She grabbed his hand and began to lead him to some of the back grounds of Alfea, in an attempt to keep their private conversation between just the two of them.

"Musa –,"

"I'm sorry I haven't been talking to you," Musa began in a softer tone as she grabbed his hand and gave him a real hug this time. "I've just been a little busy,"

"Busy….?" Daniel questioned with a raised eyebrow. The two continued to walk aimlessly along the backgrounds of the school. "That sounds like a load of crap, and completely untrue,"

Damn. There were few people that knew Musa enough to know when she was not telling the whole truth about how she was feeling, and Daniel happened to be one of them. "Okay, I just felt a little weird,"

"About what?" Daniel said stopping their walk and looking her square in the eye.

"Us," Musa admitted. "You don't feel the least bit awkward about the fact that we used to date and then we broke up and didn't talk for months. I just feel like, I don't want us to regress and go back to doing something that is just bad for us and for our relationship,"

"Look," Daniel said holding Musa on her shoulders. "We can't erase what happened, but I can't be without my best friend and you cant say you didn't miss me, so we can just move on and be friends again, even if it kills us,"

Musa laughed and continued to walk along with Daniel. She told him about everything that was happening, not everything, she was going to fill him in on everything that was going on later when he couldn't do anything to stop her from standing by her school. But she did explain how she went to Sparx, leaving out the part when she got a bite on her ankle, and most importantly, how she was going to be able to stay at Alfea. They talked about the most random of topics to some more sensitive issues for a couple hours and it Musa was finally feeling like life was beginning to make itself less complicated.

"Told you your dad would change his mind," Daniel said confidently, almost too confidently.

"Yeah," Musa said as she looked at Daniel suspiciously. Daniel was definitely the kind of guy to bribe someone into bending to his will, but how could he possibly bribe her aunt and her father? Not to mention he kind of wanted her to come back to Devon Prep, but then of coarse that smile on his face spoke volumes. "You didn't do anything, did you?"

"Of coarse not,"

"Daniel,"

"I didn't," Daniel continued to defend. Musa gave him a hard look and crossed her arms and looked at him knowingly. "Fine, I did do something. But only a little,"

"Am I going to be in trouble when I get home," Musa said through a slight chuckle.

"No, I promise," Daniel assured as the two continued to walked along the side of the school. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close to him. For a second Musa's pulse quickened and she became nervous. She had been scared that she was regressing back into having feelings for him, but after walking around with him and talking to him she finally knew there was nothing there between them. "I just told your aunt that what she was doing was a little under handed and if she ever wanted the possibility of a permanent alliance between our kingdoms she would have to start considering the feelings of the future heirs,"

"Daniel! You did not play the marriage card," Musa said pushing him back trying to stifle a laugh.

"Hey it got the job done, besides it's not like I went there a promised an engagement," Daniel defended as they rounded a corner and began to walk back onto the crowded quad. "I just told her what she wanted to hear,"

"Yeah and there are going to be no consequences to that," Musa groaned sarcastically.

"So…which one of these guys is the one that –," Daniel began as he looked around the quad and tried not to act too superior to the guys there, even though he was better than most of them.

Before Daniel could continue her was stopped by Musa turning around and standing in front of him with an agitated look. "We are not doing this,"

"Come on, I wont' take it personally, I swear," Daniel said putting his arms in the air as if surrendering. "Please I just wanna know,"

"Why?"

"Could I take him?" Daniel said looking around feeling a little less manly considering he was around a bunch of guys that were pretty much being taught how to be the hero while he was being taught Crescendian law. Suffice to say he didn't feel superior in every way.

"No," Musa said bluntly. Riven wasn't even here, but if they ever did get into a fight, Riven would definitely win, not that they would ever get in a fight, especially since Musa had no idea where he was at the moment. But still, what did it matter anyway? She really didn't feel like explaining what happened to him, mostly because it was really embarrassing, but also cause it was a little awkward.

"Fine point him out," Daniel demanded as Musa took his hand and began pulling him towards the clearing where his jet had made it's makeshift landing. "I just wanna see this guy,"

"No Daniel!" Musa demanded. She turned around and faced him as they finally got the jet which was now roaring, ready to take off. "Please can we not get into this now, or ever for that matter,"

"Fine, but one day I wanna meet this guy," Daniel said as the two stood in front of the stairs that led up to the jet. "I mean it, I wanna see this guy one day, I promise I'll be nice. I just wanna see who made you want to give up a prince,"

"You're a pompous, rich jackass," Musa said but her voice lacking the vicious tone. She was used to telling Daniel something along those lines when he was acting like a little rich boy and she loved him for it because he hardly ever meant it, but it was funny.

"A pompous, rich, jackass, that you happen to be best friends with," Daniel shot back.

"Yeah I guess,"

"Are you sure you want to stay I mean we can go back together," Daniel said once again, his protective side kicking in once again trying to get her to come back so that she would be okay. "We can come back right after everything calms down,"

"Daniel," Musa said reminding him that she was more than capable of taking care of herself. "I'm fine here, I promise, it's nothing we can't handle,"

"I still don't think you're telling me the truth," Daniel in formed her as he gave her a kiss on the head and began walking up the stairs and onto his jet. "But I guess I'm not the one to be lecturing you about honesty, just promise me you'll be okay, no matter what's happening here,"

"Promise,"

"And if you don't call me and tell me you're okay in the next week," Daniel threatened with some seriousness in his voice. "I'm sending a fleet,"

Musa laughed to herself as she watched her best friend, and nothing more, walk onto the jet and take the long flight back after seeing her for about a couple of hours. There was one thing she couldn't deny about Daniel, she knew he would go to the ends of the universe to make sure that she was okay and no matter how crappy her life seemed to get, she knew there was always going to be someone to help her up when she fell, which was bound to happen.

* * *

With a happy giggle, Musa walked back onto the main part of the campus and then she began to walk through the quad when she was stopped by Techna, Flora, and Ali. They were all standing in a line in front of the staircase that led up to hallway that led to the dorms. "So what the hell was that about?" Ali blurt out. "Last we checked you two were friends and then I see you guys sneaking off to the backgrounds of Alfea to do god knows what and now a couple hours later he's gone. Flying all the way here for a quickie seems kinda dumb since you'll be home all summer and –,"

"Is that what you think!" Musa said stopping her mid-rant. She looked to Techna and Flora, who turned away from her and looked to the ground, a clear indication that they were indeed thinking something along those lines. "No! that is not what happened. I haven't been able to talk to him in a few days so he got a little worried thinking that things between us weren't okay,"

"So he hopped on a jet and flew all the way here just to see you for a few hours?" Ali asked as if it were the craziest thing in the world and in some way it was kind of crazy, but not for Musa. She was used to Daniel doing seemingly extravagant or unnecessary things to show that he cared, he had his flaws, but he was a sweet guy when he wanted to be and Musa had realized that the only time that she ever spoke about him was when they were in an argument and that gave her fiends a very skewed idea of them.

"You guys don't know him like I do," Musa defended. "That's just Daniel being Daniel; he does a lot of extravagant things to prove a point,"

"So nothing's going on?" Techna asked with some skepticism still in her voice.

"Not a thing," Musa asserted once again as she changed her tone a bit. "But, I wont be going to Devon next year!"

And just as Musa predicted her friends' attention immediately shifted to how on earth she got out of that squabble with her family and even though it had a good amount to do with Daniel's intervening, Musa decided to leave that out for now. Everyone was still a bit on the fence on whether they believed the whole 'just friends' thing and she really didn't want to push it.

"If everything is made of rot, do you think it's made of like dead bodies and stuff too?" Gypsy questioned. She was one of those girls that was fun in small doses, it wasn't that she wasn't a nice person, but her blissfully oblivious personality made it impossible for anyone to stand her for more than an hour, which was probably why she was such good friends with Flora, since the floral fairy could deal with pretty much anyone.

Musa remembered that fact as she turned over in her bed and tried to get some more sleep. The others hadn't returned yet and she was beginning to worry, they said that they would only be about a day and it was already nightfall and they had yet to return. "Oh I hope not," Flora said half paying attention and half looking at what Techna was doing.

While Flora talked to Gypsy and Musa tried to get some rest, Techna was trying to get into some type of communication with their friends that had gone to Cloud Tower, clearly Musa was not the only one that was worried. "Can you reach them?" Flora asked.

"Not yet," Techna answered. "But I'm going to try another spell,"

Turning over once again, Musa tried to get some sleep but she couldn't, not that insomnia was anything new to her, it seemed to be something that had been plaguing her for months, her mind always seemed to be full of worry and it had been getting worse in the past day. "I'm gonna get some air," Musa said as she walked out of her room and onto the only balcony that was left intact.

Musa sat alone on the balcony and tried to think of everything that was good in life, she had learned this handy strategy from Leslie back when she went to Devon. When she felt overwhelmed she was told to simply think about everything she had going for her. She had her friends, which finally included Daniel again, she wasn't going to be sent home despite Karen's best efforts and now Karen wasn't even an issue anymore. If she tried to rise up and take Musa on again she had the smoke and gun sitting in her top desk drawer.

But when she looked at the good, Musa couldn't help but notice the bad. The school was under attack, her friends were missing, and so was Riven. Musa leaned back against the wall of the balcony as she crossed her legs and sat leisurely, but her mind was anything but at peace. "Are you okay?" A voice asked from behind.

Musa looked up to see Flora standing in between the room and the balcony, Musa nodded and Flora took that as permission to sit next to her and enjoy the view, although the scene laid out in front of them wasn't ideal.

"Remember how you said that if you think someone is worth it, then you should forgive them for what they've done," Musa said a few minutes later not looking up from the floor of the marble balcony.

"Yeah,"

"What if they've done something so despicable that they deserve what they get," Musa said, still unable to look up at Flora. "But you still really want them to be in your life… it's stupid, you'd have to be stupid to think like that,"

"Musa, what's going on?" Flora encouraged as she put a supportive hand on her shoulder and knelt down so that she was her eyelevel. This conversation was beginning to sound a lot like the one that they had a few weeks ago. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," Musa said looking away and laying back in her bed and burying her head in her knees. Why was she even considering this, was she so desperate for someone that she would stoop so low as to settle for a guy that not only didn't want her, but was willing hurt her to impress some witch.

"You can tell me, sweetie,"

"I'm just worried is all,"

"About what," Flora asked. Musa wanted to answer and tell her that it was Riven that was worrying her and that she was secretly wishing he would walk back onto the campus. Musa didn't answer, she did want to talk about it, but how exactly was she supposed to explain her desire to see him again, it was insane, (**2**) she looked back up at Flora, still not answering, but Flora got the message. "Oh,"

"Yeah," Musa looked back down feeling ashamed.

"It's okay to worry," Flora assured. "It just shows that you're a good person,"

"A stupid person," Musa corrected.

"Don't worry," Flora said once as she stood up and began to walk back inside. "Things always have a way of working themselves out,"

Musa nodded and sat on the balcony for awhile longer, she looked up to the sky and felt a cool breeze sweep by. It was the calm before the storm.

* * *

_1.Did anyone else notice that this well is there every now and again. I guess that's just the Magix of Alfea…._

_2. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result as according to the DSM V – 4 _

_that's another chapter, next up is when Riven returns! fun stuff!!_

_xoxo,  
princessm_


	23. The Search for the Flame

_okay so two months since i've updated....sorry! but my finals are finally over so i am hoping to finish the rest of the story soon._

_So I'm not excatly in love with this chapter, but nothing really happened to Musa in this one - so here's a shorty - sorry for the wieght. _

**The Search for the Flame**

In every brochure and booklet that Musa was given about Alfea, she had always felt a certain calm about the school. It was near one of the most beautiful cities in the magical universe and the weather was never cold. It was like eternal summer here and while academic rigor was strongly emphasized, Musa always thought that she would be in some endless party of fun and friends while she was here. So looking around at what the school had become was definitely not was she was expecting.

She walked from what was left of her room down to the quad where most of the students were. While everyone was trying to pass the time in their own way, but a heavy feeling of anxiety and worry filled the air all over the campus and it was nearly impossible to escape it.

Musa walked to Flora, who was sitting with Kiko and Pepe, and looked up to see Techna and Timmy walking toward them as well. They had been working day and night trying to fix the warning system that was put in effect a few years back, it served to predict future threats towards the school, while it was usually used to catch students that were breaking the rules, it also served a more useful purpose. "How are things looking?" Musa asked when the two were in talking distance.

"Umm well," Timmy said nervously, making Musa's hope for the situation fall flat.

"Are Stella and Bloom going to be okay?" Flora asked with concern.

"The numbers don't exactly look good," Timmy said nervously as he scratched the back of his head. "Actually, they look pretty bad,"

"How bad?" Musa demanded knowing Timmy was easy to crumble when pushed. He may have been a prodigy with a computer, but when it came to face to face confrontation, he was as steady as Ali in 4 inch heels, after a long night of partying.

"We haven't been able to successfully reinstate the warning system that was in place before the initial attacks, but the makeshift model is having some success," Timmy began. "Although, some of the variables are extraneous and certain phenomena cannot be explained readily – ,"

"In a language normal people would understand," Ali cut in with a distasteful smile, rather rudely, earning a sour look from Techna. She had never been the one to mince words and if there was a particular quality she didn't like about you, it was a safe bet that she would tell you. And with Timmy it was his over analysis over everything. "If you would,"

"The models aren't perfect," Techna cut in see the uncomfortable look on Timmy's face after Ali's clear jab at him, whatever Timmy was about to say was swiftly cut off by the anxiety of having to get into a verbal squabble with Ali. "But even with them, things don't look too good," Techna said in a lower voice as she delivered the grave news. "The odds are against Stella and Bloom,"

"This stinks," Flora complained.

"Don't worry girls, I know the odds are against them, but they were against you guys making it back from Sparx," Timmy pointed out before turning to answer Saladin's call for him to report his findings. As Musa watched Timmy walk away she tried to take comfort in the fact that they were never ones to follow the odds. But she was still feelings restless.

"We should have been allowed to go," Musa pouted as she took a seat on the grass and folded her arms. This was so like Faragonda, put Bloom in the line of fire, but the rest of her friends were far too delicate. Musa may not have been trained in combat, but Bloom hadn't even used her powers until she got here. The protected, damsel in distress role was one that Musa felt like she had been playing all of her life. For once she would have loved it if someone let her do something without sending in back up. It even happened in her circle of friends, she had always been the youngest and that warranted everyone looking after her as if she were a child. And while their sentiments were always in the right place, the fact of the matter was that she sick and tired of being underestimated. "They could use our help and there is no way that sending Sky and Brandon was a better idea than sending two of us,"

"That's not true, the boys could be helpful for navigation," Flora pointed out calmly. While she knew that she had a point, the idea didn't seem to go over to well with the musical princess, who said nothing but gave her a betrayed glare. "Besides you were injured, you would have been put in even more danger," Flora defended once again.

"That's not the point,"

"Then what is,"

"Aren't you worried that the army of decay is recharging while we're sitting here," Musa complained as worry pushed heavily on her shoulders.

"Well the only thing we can do is be ready, right?" Flora encouraged. Everyone was a bit edgy but Musa couldn't sit still, she hated leaving things undone, she wanted this mess to be over. Of coarse that couldn't happen until they figured out how exactly they were going to defeat the army of decay, brute force was obviously failing miserably. You didn't have to be a Red Fountain student to know that a strategy of attack usually worked better than simply attacking.

"This whole thing is majorly whack," Musa spat, unhappy with Flora's answer.

"You said it,"

"Seriously, the semester is almost over," She complained on. It was the end of the spring semester, although in Magix was summer all year round. If she had been back at Devon she and her friends would be preparing for the annual Sunset Ball, the social event of the season that officially started summer. The Alfea equivalent was prom and while her friends at home were off buying ball gowns and planning who would be attending with whom, she was here fighting to save the magical universe from utter destruction. "This time of year we would be getting ready for prom,"

"Just forget prom," Techna advised. "We'll never have an opportunity to do something this important every again," (**1**)

"We are in a critical point in time, think about it the fate of the fate of an entire dimension is in our hands," Techna went on, adding more passion an rhetoric to each word she said, as if trying to persuade them to not be sick of the fighting and sleepless nights. "This is much more meaningful and exciting than prom -,"

"Not the way I had it planned," Ali complained as she joined the group.

"This is history," Techna went on ignoring Ali's comment.

"Who cares about history if you're not around long enough to tell about it," Amaryl spat as she walked toward the fairy. "And stop dissing prom; I'm on the committee,"

"I wasn't dissing prom," Techna corrected. "I find that our responsibility to our school is more important than anything else,"

"Look around!" Amaryl shouted. "What school do you see? Because all I see are a bunch of students running around pretending that they can save the world!"

"We can if we try!"

"What fairytale are you living in!" Amaryl shot back. "Last time I checked, no fairy god mother was going to swoop in and save us at the very last minute,"

"Guys! We need to stop fighting," Flora said trying to stop the belligerent fairies. Everyone was on their last nerve and it seemed that it was hard to have a conversation without someone loosing their cool, well for the girls anyway. The boys were trained to stay calm in these kinds of situations, so they were off trying to get some sleep, or in many boys' case, hitting on some the Alfea girls.

"She's right, we need to stick together," Musa defended. "Especially now, who knows what those witches are going to throw at us next?"

"Whatever," Amaryl huffed and walked away.

"I'm going to go run through the calculations a few more times, maybe we can get the warning module working this time," Techna said as she turned around swiftly and stomped off in the opposite direction.

"Well that leaves us," Musa said looking at Flora, Priscilla and Ali. All four of them had been doing basically the same thing all day; they had been sitting around, thinking about what was going to happen.

"I can't sit here and think about the army of decay anymore," Priscilla said frustrated. "I'm going to go insane,"

"We could play truth or dare," Ali suggested with a daring looking as she turned her head slightly and gave a sly grin to particular boy she had been eyeing. "To pass the time,"

"Ali, just go over and talk to him," Priscilla said through an exhausted tone. "Or stick or tongue down his throat or whatever it is that will make you shut up with these stupid ideas,"

"Seriously," Musa said as she rolled her eyes. Flora had even gotten up and left, knowing that whatever Ali had planned was not going to be too much fun for her. "Sometimes I cannot understand you at all, we are in the middle of a panic and that's what you think about?"

"Fine, I'll be back," Ali said, obviously not listening to what they were saying.

Ten minutes later Ali had returned and she brought….entertainment, as she put it.

"Ladies," Musa heard from behind her and turned to see one of the Red Fountain seniors staring her down and behind him were a few other boys and behind them was, of course, Ali. "Since we can't really do anything, how about -,"

"Yeah," Musa said cutting him off before he attempted to lay down some pathetic pick up line. "No thanks," Musa then proceeded to walk away.

"Well Daniel is over," Ali pointed out. "And you've made it clear that you _don't_ want Riven; dead or alive, it's time you look at other boys,"

"Have you been talking to Stella?" Musa groaned as she continued to walk away from Ali and the rest of the group. "

"Stop being such a wet blanket," Ali complained and ran in front and stopped Musa's stride away from her. "Can you loosen up for once, stop being so freaking insecure, and pull the stick outta your ass for a second,"

Once again Ali forgot to filter what she was thinking and what she was saying. And even though she had hit her mark perfectly, this was probably not the best time to give Musa a slap of reality. "Musa….I didn't -"

Musa stopped and looked at Ali with venom in her eyes. "We are in the middle of very serious situation and I know you absolutely hate taking anything seriously, expect of coarse sex, boys, and having fun, but maybe for **one second**, you could act like your age and take some responsibility," Musa spat out, that was the thing about being friends with someone, you get to know their faults and most friends try to help you work on those faults. But when there was an arguments, those faults were used a weapons and Musa was becoming really good at defending herself, but she hated how blunt she was with someone she had gotten so close to.

The two fairies stood face to face, silent, for a few more seconds before Ali spoke up. "Fine, I'm going to go have some fun before reality sets in and we have to start fighting…again. You can sit here and worry, try not to have a heart attack,"

Musa looked back and pouted before she walked off to see where Flora had run off to. She found her in their room with Mirta once again. "Want some help?" Musa asked as she walked up to Flora, who seemed to be in a state of depression when she thought about Mirta.

"Maybe if we can defeat the witches…." Flora said with a sideways smile of hope as she continued to look through her book of spells for vegetation.

"Yeah," Musa said trying to make Flora feel a bit better. It was all she could do seeing as everything else seemed to be out of their control.

* * *

_1. until next year that is_

_Okay, so I know its not the most interesting chapter, but it had to be done. Promise the next one will be more action packed. _

_xoxo,  
princessm_


	24. Battle for Alfea

_I've found that in most Musa/Riven stories you never really get how Musa felt seeing Riven again. Most of the stories have Riven feeling bad about everyhitn he had done (and some storied don't even have that) but we don't really know how Musa took it when Riven stepped out of the vorpal tunnel. And it's not like the show itself gives you absolutely nothing. So, this chapter is my attempt to fill in the blanks left by the show. _

_Chapter 24 of 26! :] _

**Battle for Alfea**

With another sleepless night under her belt Musa walked onto the quad and noticed that the teachers were looking a lot less positive about everything as well. The night before they had held a meeting in Faragonda's office to discuss the possible courses of action, but as everyone else knew, without Griffin here to help, they didn't have much knowledge. Cloud Tower was where the witches had made their headquarters and the students there probably knew a lot more than anyone else did right now.

"Any news?" Musa asked as she walked up to Timmy and Techna who were analyzing new sets of data that they had collected through the night. The two had never spoken very much before the invasion and now it looked like they were inseparable. _Stella would love this_ Musa thought to herself as she thought about her friends that still hadn't returned from Cloud Tower.

"Yes, but hardly anything good," Techna stated without looking up from the computer.

"The dark energy seems to be permeating all throughout the realm, according to our reading, it has already hit Magix and it is only being held off from Alfea because of Ms. Faragonda's magical barrier," Timmy added as he adjusted his glasses and looked back up at Musa. "We can't even get a reading around Cloud Tower,"

"Any good news," Musa turned to see Ali approaching with an uncomfortable smile on her face.

"Not yet," Techna said, still not looking up from the computer. She was re-calculating the numbers over and over again, hoping for a different result each time. Although she knew the situation was only going to be worse.

Musa began to walk away, only to have Ali catch up to her. "Okay, so are we still in an argument because I'm not too good at the whole apologizing thing,"

Musa sighed and looked at Ali. "No, I guess you were right, maybe I needed some time to relax," Musa admitted. "But by relax, I mean lay back and take a nap. Not lay back and…you know,"

"Have sex?" Ali said bluntly knowing it was what Musa was thinking about. "it's not like that happened, I'm really not that slutty,"

"I wasn't saying you were –,"

"Maybe looser than I should be…"

"Okay anyway," Musa said veering back on to their original topic. "Thanks for being honest with me, I guess it's better than hearing something I want to hear and not knowing what's really going on. So you don't need to apologize," Musa assured as she sat down on a part of the Alfea gate that wasn't crumbling.

"I may not be the most sensitive," Ali admitted with a laugh as she sat down next to Musa on the gate. "But you can be damn sure that I'll tell you when an outfit makes you look like a drag queen on crack (**1**),"

"Well, that's always nice," Musa said. "How about we tone it do–," Before she could finish Musa watched as Clouds began to gather in the sky, right above the quad and seconds later Techna ran over to the center of the quad and began to type furiously into her computer while Timmy ran inside, probably to the advanced security network mainframe. "What the hell?"

Musa got up and ran over to where Techna was with Ali not far behind. "What's going on?" Ali asked as she caught up to the two.

"The dark energy is off the charts, something has made it through the barrier that Ms. Faragonda put up," Techna exclaimed as she looked up to Musa with panic painted all over her face. She then turned her attention back up to the dark sky and gazed with utter fear. "Something is materializing,"

"Oh goodness," Flora said as she ran up to the three in the middle of the quad. "This doesn't look very good,"

"Do you know what it is?," Musa asked ignoring the overwhelming urge to hit Flora upside the head for that ridiculously obvious observation. She looked up at the sky and saw a bit of light peaking through the clouds.

"It's most likely a vorpal tunnel," Techna answered urgently. While it looked a little less daunting, but it was still something that Ms. Faragonda needed to know about. And, as if Flora had been thinking the exact same thing at the same time, the two dashed over to inform their head mistress of the developing news.

"Miss Faragonda something is coming," Flora shouted as the two ran over the group of administrators of the schools in Magix.

"Techna sensed a vorpal tunnel materializing right over there," Musa added as she caught her breathe. Ms. Faragonda's face immediately turned to where Musa was pointing and she began to walk cautiously towards the tunnel.

"Is it a sneak attack!" One of the fairies yelled out as everyone gathered around the tunnel, not taking into account the fact that there was a very good chance that it was an enemy attacking.

"It's Princess Stella! They're back!" Priscilla called cheerfully.

The tunnel began to fade and Musa saw Stella appear and a smile spread across her face and then the last person she was expecting to see. Riven stood there, with the same scowl, although he looked a little tired. And while half of Musa felt sheer joy to see him walking onto campus alive and well, the other half of her wanted to kill him for having the audacity to come back here.

"Oh my god," Ali said plainly with a similar look of shock that Musa had. "He's…not dead,"

"What the hell is he doing here!" Musa seethed. Where did he get off coming here? Last anyone knew of him he was practically Darcy's bitch, and god only knows what that entailed. She looked around and wondered why she and Ali were the only ones that were shocked by the sudden developments.

"And they rescued the imprisoned witches," Flora noted calmly, which infuriated Musa even more. Why wasn't someone going up to him and hitting him or something! "But they look pretty grumpy."

"It's vorpal tunnel syndrome," Techna explained. "It's like jet lag."

"How long has it been since you last set foot on the Alfea campus, Griffin?" Ms. Faragonda finally asked as she broke the silence as she and Ms. Griffin met in the middle of the quad to address each other.

"We were juniors and Edell Droode and I were sneaking onto campus to turn the Kai Fly sorority into goats," Miss Griffin offhandedly as if it were common behavior, and it used to be before the Trix had entered the realm and decided to mess up the fragile balance between the schools.

"Ah, yes, if memory serves me, I believe you left our campus seven inches tall," Faragonda recalled with a lighthearted laugh before adding, "In a jar."

"Those were happier times, weren't they?" Griffin recalled with a slight frown, still keeping her calm and almost cold composure.

"With all of us banding together perhaps those happier time can return."

With that said, Stella happily shook off whatever residual fatigue she was feeling and flew up into the air in joy. She then landed in front of her friends that all wondered

"Stella, where's Bloom?" Flora asked with concern as the fairy landed on the ground. Her face immediately lost it's initial joy when she thought of the missing member of the Winx Club.

"Why isn't she with you?" Techna asked.

"We don't know that happened to her and Sky," Stella said regretfully as she looked to the ground. "They stayed behind to keep the monsters from entering out escape portal and they were supposed to meet up back here at Alfea,"

"Oh dear," Flora said sadly as tears began to fall from Stella's golden eyes.

"Wait," Ali said. "You're saying you let Riven in the vorpal tunnel, but left Sky and Bloom behind?"

"They wanted to stay behind to save us," Stella said regretting her decision to let them go alone.

"It's okay," Musa said stepping in, feeling even angrier with Riven. "They'll be fine, Bloom was fine without her powers before and Sky is smart. They'll be fine," Musa repeated.

"I hope so," Stella said as Techna and Flora walked back inside with Ali and Musa and Stella began to walk over to Brandon.

"So on a lighter note," Musa began and looked to Stella. "What's going on with you and Brandon?"

"You were right," Stella admitted. Musa looked to her with some surprise, getting to Stella to admit that Musa was right when it came to anything, especially a romantic matter was not a common occurrence. "He apologized for everything and I know he won't pull a stunt like that again,"

"Good, we really don't need all that drama again," Musa said as the two of them approached the squire in question, who was talking to a few of his friends that had been waiting for him. "Right Brandon,"

"Huh…sure," Brandon answered in confusion as he turned to address Musa. "You still angry with me?"

"Depends," Musa answered. "Do you plan on being Brandon from now on or are you really Jason?" she teased and regarded one of the guys that had greeted Brandon. While Musa had become friends with a lot of guys from Red Fountain, she had become close with thet guys from their little group, especially Brandon. He had become a sort of big brother to her, she was the one who would help him when he was having problems with Stella and he was always there for her when she needed someone outside of Alfea to talk to. But, when she learned of his changing identities with Sky, any trust she had in him was gone. Luckily, with the turn of events he had managed to get back on her good side. Plus if Stella could forgive him, she could too.

"Nah," Brandon said as he gave Musa a hug. She was glad to see that some of her friends had come back safely. "I don't think I'd look too great with red hair,"

Standing not too far from the group was Riven with a look of regret painted all over his face, not that it would be earning him any sympathy from Musa. She had made eye contact with the fallen hero on her walk over to Brandon, but immediately looked away, but she did manage to glance back and see the hurt on his face. He had made a million bad decisions and making one good one wasn't going to fix that. "You should get some rest," Musa advised Brandon knowing her suggestion was in vain considering nobody was able to relax with this much stress in the air. "The best is yet to come,"

Brandon nodded and Musa decided to get go back to her room for a bit. It was better than staying out here where the air was way too uncomfortable. She began to walk towards the corridor when she heard something behind her. "Well well, we haven't seen her highness since that day that she learned not to traipse around our territory,"

Musa turned to see some of the seniors that were involved that day at the Hex Café, she knew it was them, they had faces that were hard to forget. She had dark hair with bright pink highlights and makeup that made her look kinda like she had been dead for a few weeks. No matter how hard she had tried. She could have just walked away and let them think whatever the hell they wanted, but that wasn't in her character. Like Brian had pointed out before she ever left for Alfea, her fatal flaw was that she couldn't let things go without getting her word in.

"Last time I checked," Musa said with no fear as she walked up to the group of witches that were causing the unwanted trip down memory lane. "It was my best friend that saved your ass at Cloud Tower, without her you witches would still be stuck at Cloud Tower,"

"Please, Griffin got us out," The one witch snapped. "But look the poor little fairy is edgy, I guess I would be too if I was still harping over a guy that was so obviously not into me. How desperate?"

Musa's fists clenched but before she could say anything else. She went on. "The trix may be crazy, but they prove a point. You fairies play second to us, so maybe you little girls should just give up, how about you sing or something. It's all you're really good for,"

"Nice one Salem," Another witch laughed.

"No, do you want to know what your kind is good for," A voice said stepping in. it was Ali who had come down to tell Musa that Flora thought she had made some progress with Mirta. But she had stumbled upon something else instead. "Well its only one thing and some of you aren't even good for that…"

"Aww how cute," the group laughed. "She has a friend, tell you what when this whole mess is over, we'll make you a permanent part of the Magix highway system,"

"You would know about that wouldn't you?" Ali questioned with a smirk. "You must be working those streets every night, but I'm guessing business is slow…"

"Ali I think that's enough," Musa said putting her hand on her shoulder. There was a certain line that you shouldn't cross and Ali usually had trouble seeing it. "I think they get the point,"

"No, I think I need to explain a bit further. You want Oscar de la Spell, you go to a upscale boutique. If you want good pizza, you go to little Italy and if you want a fun night with a slut you can throw away like a Kleenex," Ali began with a vicious smile. "You go to Cloud tower, aww don't be sad, at least you girls are good for something,"

"You're dead," Salem snarled before lunging towards Ali, only to be stopped mid lunging, hair away from Ali, by Ms. Faragonda.

"What do you think you are doing," Ms. Faragonda exclaimed angrily. "We are in the middle of a crisis and you handle this by getting a fight with each other. You witches go to Ms. Griffin so she can give you your punishment,"

While the witches were not too keen on listening to Ms. Faragonda, there was no question that they were intimidating by the headmistress despite her older age. "Now you two, why is it that every time there is a tussle here at Alfea one of you seems to be involved?"

"Bad timing?" Ali said nervously with an unsure smile. "Won't happen again,"

"I hope not," Ms. Faragonda said with her tense face softening almost to a smile. "Despite this you girls have been a tremendous help, thank you," She said before walking away.

"Sorry Ms. F," Musa apologized as Ms. Faragonda walked away, before grabbing Ali's arm and walking away. "Thanks," Musa said finally when they were out of earshot of the witches. "I guess it was only a matter of time until someone brought that back up,"

"I've got your back," Ali said contently. "But, I think for your pride's sake, just go back to your room for a bit. There are plenty of those witches that were there at the Hex café that day around here,"

"Yeah probably," Musa said with a sigh. She began to feel the humiliation of day all over again although she didn't want anyone to know that. It was bad enough to live that day once, but now she was living all the awful feelings she went through that day all over again. "Why can't this be over so I can go home?" she complained. Going back to the palace and spending a summer with her friends and Daniel sounded so amazing right now. At home she wasn't the stupid girl that fell for the worst guy possible, she was a force to be reckon with, and only the foolish tried.

"Wait, you don't think this is super fun!" Ali exclaimed sarcastically, but noticed her joke didn't go over too well. "Come on Musa, those witches were just bitchy and in a bad mood. Nobody is going to bring that up,"

"Yeah, but it still happened," Musa said angrily as she and Ali walked into her room to see everyone crowded around Mirta.

"What still happened," Stella asked when the two reached the table.

"Nothing," Musa answered and looked down to Mirta. "Any good news?"

"No," Flora said putting down her spell book and walking to the couch and taking a seat. "Nothing seems to be working,"

Musa sat down next to Flora and put her feet up on the table. "Sorry Flo, you'll get it, I know you will,"

"I hope so,"

"Don't worry, once we have the witches figured out," Musa encouraged as everyone began to leave to room. While everyone wanted to get some rest there was too much excitement, anticipation and anxiety in the air. "It'll get better,"

"So Riven's back," Flora pointed out a few minutes later, being the first person to actually mention his name today. "Does that have anything to do with your mood?"

"And what mood would that be?" Musa asked and looked over to Flora who had a knowing look on her face.

"Only Riven makes you that angry," Flora said as she began to laugh. The games that they used to play were rather enjoyable for someone who was spectator; it was adorable how much they both denied what they knew was true.

"It's not funny," Musa said taken aback by her lightheartedness with what was going on. After everything he had done to them, everything he had done to her… "He shouldn't be back here and we shouldn't just be okay with it! Why isn't anyone else angry about this!"

"I thought you were worried about him…" Flora pointed out. Musa looked up with rage; of coarse she was worried about him that was when she had reason to be.

"Yeah," Musa agreed a little unsteadily, still shaking with anger. "That was when I thought he was dead. Now he just comes waltzing on campus like nothing ever happened. Are we supposed to ignore the fact that he joined the witches and he's probably one of the reasons that the army of decay is at our doorstep!"

"Maybe he apologized," Flora stated.

"And what was his reason for betraying everyone?" Musa asked. "Was he just bored one day and decided to do something new. The way I see it, there is no conceivable reason that makes what he did forgivable and I'm surprised everyone else is so…"

"Understanding?"

"Blind," Musa finished. "He's capable of ditching all of his friends to join people who he knows are bad and then help them do bad things. If he's willing to do that then what else is he willing to do?" she argued when she began to realize why everyone was okay with him returning and she wasn't.

"Then don't forgive him," Flora said boldly, knowing she was saying something that Musa didn't want to hear. And from the look of surprise on her face, Flora managed to make the princess see what she was really feeling. "I mean he did something awful and even if his friends managed to forgive him, doesn't mean you have to. You forgave Daniel for cheating but not forgiving Riven makes total sense,"

Musa looked to Flora with surprise, sarcasm wasn't exactly her strong suit but she hit the nail on the head with this one. "What's your point," Musa said knowing exactly what her point was and no matter how much Riven pushed her away, she couldn't seem to hate him. _Ugh…he is so infuriating._ Musa thought knowing Flora was right.

"You know what it is," Flora said as she stood up. "But it's your decision, personally all I need is for someone to be truly sorry and Riven looks like he regrets what he did. Although I don't think we'll be getting an official apology anytime soon,"

Musa sat in that exact spot in her room for a bit before getting up and going to her balcony. She looked out and saw Riven, walking across the campus and sitting alone on one of the benches. She couldn't help feel pity for him, but at the same time he deserved to be a thing of ridicule, he had abandoned everyone and it was all his choice. Flora may have been able to look past someone's mistakes and forgive them, but Riven had done way too much to deserve forgiveness, well from her anyway.

Of course, this was assuming that he wanted her forgiveness. For all she knew he was laughing at her because she was so naïve and weak in all of this, forgiving him would mean she would have to just accept everything he had done, and more importantly she would have to give up her pride and let him know how much he had hurt her. And her pride was something she was not ready to part from.

Time seemed to past quickly while Musa looked out onto the horizon. She had been standing out on the balcony in solitude for what seemed like a few minutes, but before she knew it, the late evening had turned into night and the night became early morning. Musa pushed herself off from against the railing and walked into the dorm to see Stella passed out on the couch. Musa quietly stepped out of the room and began to walk down the hallway when she heard a wail in the air.

Musa knew that sound anywhere. She ran to the nearest window and stared out to see the stingrays flying towards them in the sky. Musa ran back in the room in grabbed Stella and dragged her down to the quad.

"Flora watch out!" Techna screamed causing Musa and Stella to run through the corridor and see the army of decay attacking the campus once again.

"Here we go again, come one let's go girls!" Musa said as they ran out into the quad and quickly transformed into her winx form.

The big thing comes at them "Relocate us!" Stella yelled and waved her scepter and relocated the fairies behind the mammoth beast.

"Do it Flo!" Musa yelled as Flora sent out a type of seaweed wrap that restrained the creature, only to have another come up and protect it again.

"Uh oh, looks like he's gotta friend," Stella said in a sing song tone.

Musa and Techna looked at each other, and immediately they flew into the air and fired simultaneous attacks at the monster. In combination, they seemed to work very effectively in disintegrating the beast.

"They're like worms," Flora said as the bits of decay fell from their previous position just as Musa and Techna landed on the ground. But before show could appreciate her handy work, the contents of the decayed beast began to reintegrate into another beast.

"Except they multiply exponentially," Techna stated as the beast began to form into four different beasts.

"That is just gross," Stella said as the 1st decay monster that Flora took down became another, larger beast.

"That is just gross," Stella said with a tinge of disgust in her voice. They may have been fighting these monsters for awhile now, but getting used to the decay and the awful smell was something nobody could do.

"No time for complaining," Musa advised as she ran behind Stella and attacked a sting ray that was doing a nose dive towards the group of fairies. The sting ray fell to bits only to reform and become a one of the yettee like monsters that were attacking Alfea by land. "Just as indestructible as ever,"

Musa landed back onto the ground on began to send out sound waves through the ground in an attempt to trip the large beasts. They may have had a lot of brute force, but they weren't exactly agile and quick, stealthy movements were not their strong suits. She began to fire attacks as soon as the sounds waves resonated through the ground and her plan had worked. The monsters fell to the ground like dominos, but when Musa looked to her side she noticed that she was now surrounded by the beasts. "Crap," Musa cursed as she flew up into the air, but before she could get very far she felt something press painfully against her ankle, the same ankle that had yet to completely heal.

Musa looked down to see one of the decay monsters had grabbed a firm hold of her ankle. She tried her best to fly upward and break free from it's grasp, but it was too strong to pull away from and that last thing she was immediately pulled from the air and slammed towards the ground.

A couple seconds later Musa opened her eyes and found herself on the ground, she looked up to see all four monsters in temporary piles of defeated decay. Around them was Riven who had turned and began to walk towards her to see if she was okay, but he stopped abruptly when he had seen Musa sitting up, looking at him with disbelief. Whatever he was about to say he didn't and he didn't make a move after their eyes met. For a few seconds the two locked eyes and Musa could see the guilt in his eyes, maybe he really was sorry everything. Her heart began race when he looked at her but she immediately shook off the attacks tore herself away from him with a cold look of disgust in her eyes. Musa walked away not seeing the pain that built in his eyes because of the way she had regarded him.

One good deed didn't deem him worth of her forgiveness.

She continued to walk as far away from Riven as she could, but when she tried to focus on an attack or even summon some of her magic, all she could do was think about him and it took all of her will power for her to not turn around and steal a glance at him. But it hardly mattered because within seconds the army had retreated, the sting rays in the air stopped flying and the creatures melted down into their rotted remains and like water sliding into a drain, they slipped through the very cracks and crevasses that they had entered from. Musa collapsed to her knees in happiness to know that the fighting was over, even if it was temporary, which she suspected it was.

After a few seconds of rubbing her aching head, Musa stood up and looked around. Everyone was cheering even though they knew that the fighting was only over temporarily, just like every battle before it. Musa got up and took a relieved breath and began to walk up to her room for awhile. She could seem to shake her fall and resting couldn't hurt. Especially since another battle with the army of decay was immanent.

There was still a tinge of pain when Musa closed her eyes for longer than it took to blink, probably because she remembered her head taking hard hit to the ground, which was probably why she had blacked out for a few seconds. Musa had tried to get some sleep what it was as useless as ever, there was too much going on to let her mind rest. She stepped out onto the balcony and felt the breeze pick up a bit. She leaned against the railing of the balcony and closed her eyes for a second before opening them again when she heard the door to the balcony open.

"Hey," Ali said as she walked up next to Musa.

"God I just want this to be over," Musa groaned. "I'm so sick of this fighting,"

"And…"

"Him too," Musa confessed.

"He kinda saved you back there," Ali stated, Musa looked at her with confusion; she had hoped not many people had seen her fall and Riven save her. He was already getting away with everything he did over the year, there was no way she wanted him too look like a hero as well. "Yeah, you kinda made a loud thud,"

"And he kinda nearly got me killed in Magix," Musa stated.

"Come on that's not the only reason you're angry at him," Ali said. "There is a bigger reason that means more than the whole 'joining the side of evil thing',"

"What is bigger than joining the witches?" Musa pointed out.

"Oh I dunno, breaking your heart," Ali pointed out earning an enraged look from the princess who changed her gaze from the horizon to her Ali. The last thing Musa wanted was to face the fact that Riven had made an utter fool out of her. He had taken the knowledge of her feelings and used it to hurt her and worse he made her a spectacle in front of all of her friends. She had never been so embarrassed or betrayed in her life and unlike other, smaller, betrayals, she couldn't exact her revenge considering she would be taking on one of the most powerful and psychotic witches in the universe. "Maybe you forgave Daniel because he didn't make you feel the same way Riven does, but hey I'm no shrink,"

Musa stood their silently. There was no real way to deny that considering Ali had basically solved the mystery that had taken Musa a few months to understand. "You said you wanted the truth…" Ali reminded. "I'm not saying forgive him, but at least know why you hate him, oh and I saw Stella practically running up here. I'm thinking you're gonna get a super fun talk from her too!"

With that Ali walked back into the dorm room, leaving Musa alone with her thoughts once again. The musical princess leaned against the railing and attempted to once again swallow her pride and forgive him, knowing that she really did want him back in her life. But she couldn't and she wouldn't.

"Guess what!" Stella said as she ran onto the balcony a few seconds later, desperately trying to catch her breath. "I was down at Ophelia's because Brandon needed to get his leg patched up after the battle and I when I was leaving I heard Timmy talking to Riven,"

"Great story,"

"I'm not done," Stella said giving Musa a punitive slap across the shoulder. "So, I took my time and I swore I heard something about being put under a spell. So then I ran back to Brandon and after a little coercing, he told me that Riven was under a spell. He's with Ophelia and some of the dark arts professors right now, they dunno how he broke out of it, but they are pretty sure he was under a spell,"

"What?" Musa asked in confusion. An enormous weight seemed to be lifted off her shoulders, the idea that Riven hadn't really been the one to turn his back on her gave her an almost euphoric feeling. It was like she could simply erase all the awful feelings she had been through when she was under the impression that Riven was making all those decision on his own. But then, it was very convenient for him to come back and claim he was under a spell. And she refused to put anything past him anymore, she had a hard time believing that he would betray everyone when he had done that earlier in the year, so why should she give him the benefit of the doubt now? "Sounds kinda like the perfect excuse,"

"You're not serious," Stella said with disbelief she had expected a happier response from Musa. "Come on I'm not his biggest fan but still. Plus it was Ophelia that diagnosed him, he went in with Brandon and she noticed something about traces of dark magic and they tested him for a bunch of different spells. He had some advanced mind control one, a powerful one that's been outlawed to teach and practice for the last hundred years,"

"So he was under a spell," Musa said slowly processing everything she was just given and beginning to feel "He had absolutely no control of what he was doing?"

"That's usually what a mind control spell is,"

"You didn't fall for a bad guy, sure he's no prince charming and you could do so much better, but now you don't have to be embarrassed about the fact that you used to like him," Stella argued even more. She hated to see her friends upset, which was why she had rushed up hear to tell Musa the news. "Or if you still – ,"

"I don't," Musa corrected quickly. "It doesn't change,"

"It does actually," Stella said before Musa could finish. "I'm thinking someone is feeling a little bad for the way she treated a certain moody hero,"

"Maybe," Musa said in a low voice unable to accept the truth.

"I think I'm going to go hang out with Brandon for awhile," Stella said tapping the side of the railing one last time and walking into the dorm. "I'm thinking you owe someone a little visit, and I know you wouldn't expect to hear this from me, but be nice,"

"I don't owe him anything!" Musa yelled, but Stella was too far down the hallway to hear. And even though Musa claimed she didn't owe him anything, the musical princess only waited a few minutes to step back into her room and then promptly walk out of it to find Riven.

The news of the real reason for Riven's betrayal obviously hadn't spread since he was sitting alone on one of the picnic tables on the back grounds of Alfea. His was looking towards the forest that surrounded the school and looked as if he were deep in thought. She walked up to him and he must not have heard her because when she finally spoke up he nearly jumped out of his skin. "Thank you," Said nervously before Riven turned to see her approaching.

Riven looked up at Musa before immediately dropping his eyes to the ground. "Are you okay," Riven asked with a distant tone, but Musa could see through the façade, he cared about her; to what extent, she didn't know, but he cared.

"I guess I should be asking you the same question," Musa said as she slowly walked towards him as if she were walking towards a cliff. When she found herself right next to him he lifted his gaze to look at her, almost as if he couldn't help himself. Looking into his eyes, Musa found the exact same emotions lingering there. He felt shame and guilt even though he knew it wasn't his fault and everything she had done only served him to feel worse. "Stella told me," Musa elaborated.

"Of coarse she did," Riven sighed as he rolled his eyes. The air around the two was tense to put it lightly, but Musa found herself feeling a lot better just talking to him. "I'm fine," he answered.

"I'm sorry," Musa began again. He may have done some awful things but they weren't by his own accord and she was sure that he was beating himself up about this already. She couldn't help but feel bad for him, he probably had some of the worst luck in the universe, and a psychotic witch spelled him and made him her personal lap dog. That had to have hurt his pride a lot not to mention the incredible guilt he must have been feeling.

Riven looked at her with some surprise. "You have nothing to be sorry about," he told her. "But I do,"

"It's not your fault," Musa said softly in an attempt to comfort him but when he looked up at her he grew even more uncomfortable as guilt and the memories of everything he had done to her swelled up inside until he knew he couldn't talk to Musa. Too much had happened and he knew now that he had killed any chance with her and thinking about that was enough to make him want to bolt.

"Thanks," Riven said uncomfortable and got up. "Umm…bye," he said as he walked back onto the more populated part of the campus. This type of behavior would normally annoy Musa enough to get angry and yell at him, but she knew this had to be hard for him. Musa could see that he wanted to say something more but something was stopping him, but Riven had never been the kind of person to open up to anyone. She didn't know if she and Riven would be anything more than what they were, no matter how much she wanted it. But she knew she could remain friends with him and put any vestigial feelings aside and maybe move on. She understood and yet she put that aside for a second to revel in the breakthrough she had just witnessed. And she couldn't help contain the smile that was spreading across her face.

Musa lingered around the bench for a couple minutes and then finally left and began to walk over to the center of the quad where Flora and Techna had been talking. She walked over to them with the smile still painted all over her face, still unable to contain it at all. "Are you actually smiling?" Techna asked sarcastically as Musa walked up to the pair.

"Are you?" Musa quipped back.

"I think things are looking up," Flora exclaimed happily. "We'll be alright, I just know it!"

"We're not the only ones," Musa pointed out as she looked past Flora to see Brandon and Stella. "It's good to know that all of this has actually helped someone's relationship,"

"Not just Stella and Brandon," Flora said she tossed a knowing look over to Techna.

"What?" Techna asked as her cheeks began to heat up and she began to blush profusely. "What?" Techna repeated. "I have no idea what you two are talking about,"

"Nothing…it's just that you and Timmy seem to be getting along," Flora said.

"Very well," Musa added,

"Yes well, we're friends and he has been an enormous help, and are we conveniently overlooking what ever is going on between you and Riven," Techna said to Musa, desperately trying to change the subject.

"That one's easy," Musa shot back effectively hiding how on edge the subject made her. "Nothing, and nice change of subject by the way,"

"See everything cloud has it's silver lining!" Flora said finally perking up. In the midst of all of this the eternally optimistic fairy's optimism had taken some kind of a nose dive. While her friends were upset about different things, Flora hated the fact that they were no longer able to mess around with each other and play practical jokes, although she had usually been the one keeping tempers from rising due to the practical joked. "Let's go mess with Stella,"

Musa and Techna looked at Flora with a bit of confusion, but Musa wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to tease Stella, especially when Flora had been the one to suggest it. "Aww isn't that sweet," Musa teased as she floated angelically in the air. "Nothing like a little end of the world romance,"

"Ignore her, aww you guys are so cute together," Flora said

"Musa don't you think you should get some rest," Stella suggested as she flicked her finger and conjured a pillow that flew right in the musical princess's face.

"That's fighting with magic!" Musa complained as she pulled the pillow off her face and sat back up, Stella had a more powerful throw then Musa gave her credit for. "It's against the rules."

"Ha! You sound like Griselda!" Brandon teased comparing Musa to the one person that could insult anyone if they were compared to them.

"No snide comments please. Only I can torment my friends," Stella told reminded the squire. "And speaking of friends I wish Bloom was here." Everyone suddenly lost their optimism and happiness.

Brandon placed a supportive hand on shoulder. "She'll be here soon enough. I'm sure she and Sky escaped from Cloud Tower and are on their way back."

"There you are," Musa immediately turned when she heard that voice. Riven and Timmy approached the group with rather serous faces. Musa, who was trying to keep her focus and not look at him, couldn't seem to help herself and the two caught each other's gazes, much like they had done so many times before earlier that year. Some things never changed.

"Timmy. Riven," Flora greeted the two heroes as they walked over to the group.

"What's the news?" Techna asked immediately assuming that they weren't walking over for a nice chat.

"Faragonda's called an assembly," Timmy informed them and everyone immediately assumed the worst.

Musa and the rest of the Winx Club – minus Bloom – lined up next to each other with the rest of the Alfea fairies in the quad surrounding the three leaders of each of the schools in Magix. Behind them were the heroes from Red fountain and then in the way back were the witches.

"In the back, where they belong," Ali whispered as she took her place in the crowd, standing diagonally from Musa. She gave an awful look back at the witches and then turned back to Musa, who was now turned looking at her with some disappointment. Musa had come to the conclusion that Ali wasn't exactly a nice person, but she was pretty when it came to people. And yet she couldn't get past centuries old prejudices.

"Be nice, they're helping us," Musa advised.

"We're in this mess because of their kin–," Ali rebottled before being 'shhhhed' by Musa. Seconds later Ms. Faragonda addressed the entire campus full of students.

"You have all fought very bravely, but this is not over. Our true test is yet to come. Fairies, witches and heroes, dig down deep and muster all your magic and power," The headmistress told them.

Miss Griffin agreed and began with some encouragement of her own. "If we all work together I know that we can triumph. Now, when we give the signal – "

Before Ms. Griffin could continues, a familiar wail filled the skies and the entirety of the campus looked back to see the Army of Decay approaching. "Here they come!"

Musa looked up to see a familiar scene in the sky and when she looked down to the horizon she saw more of the army coming their way. It was twice as large as all of the smaller attacks.

"You gotta be kidding there's like thousands of them," Stella complained.

"I don't think counting is gonna help," Musa said to Stella before she flew into the air and began throwing a few attacks in the hopes that she would be able to lessen the load when the army reached Alfea.

Musa continued to attack the sting rays in the air when she got distracted by a loud crash behind her. She saw a giant rot monster, bigger than the ones she was used to seeing climbed up the tower that held the highest balcony. It was Musa's favorite place in the entire school, the monster then proceeded to destroy the tower until it was a pile of rubble. She couldn't believe the sight that was in front of her, but she kept fighting on, feeling the adrenaline coursing through her viens as her power began to strengthen.

The entire Winx Club was now taking the battle by air but the army seemed to have some type of order this time. In a matter of seconds they were surrounded on all sides by the winged beasts of decay and flying upward would only drain their energy even more, while landing on the ground would still pose an equal threat.

"They're swarming us," Flora yelled in panic, this was the hardest battle they had faced yet.

"I've got an idea," Musa said they were all coming from the direction of Cloud Tower. When the army first began it's approach towards Alfea, they seemed never ending but Musa almost began to see the final line of sting rays in the air. She remembered all the times she played chess with Daniel when they were growing up. This stream of attacks seemed to be more organized, and in battle, like chess, the pawns and the less valuable pieces go first to protect the powerful ones. If she wanted to make an impact, the most powerful stingrays needed to go down first. "Can you move us to their rear flank Stella?"

Stella nodded and waved her scepter a few times before transporting them to behind the enemy lines. "Sweet," Musa said happily as she prepared an attack. "Now watch this," She then send out a concentrated attack that took a few seconds to summon but when it came into effect a few seconds later, a barrier went up around the Winx Club. Not only that but the barrier radiated intense sound waves of the highest frequency, moving so fast that they created sonic booms. This attack was one of the most powerful attacks that she could summon without losing consciousness. And when the attack wore off Musa looked to see the stingrays falling to their original worm form. Musa couldn't help but be proud of herself, she had just knocked out some of the most powerful of the army, but as she looked on the ground, the monsters began to reform.

Musa and Techna immediately went to the ground an attacked the decay before it could reform and for once it seemed effective. It was almost as if they had found a flaw in the army of decay.

"Fairies of Alfea," Ms. Faragonda yelled out to the girls. "This is our moment; focus your energy into one attack,"

"Witches of Cloud Tower," Griffin shouted as well. "Unite your powers with the fairies,"

"Now!" They shouted in unison. Musa and the rest of the fairies began to summon their power and combine it into one large scale attack, while the witches followed suit soon after. The light barrier that Griffin and Faragonda summoned became a dark orange and grew darker as they focused their energy into one attack and soon after the army began to die down until it was completely gone.

When the attack was over Musa felt completely drained and cold. The entirety of her magic was gone for the time being and she felt nauseous and freezing and dizzy but at the same time she took a look around the campus and realized that they had finally won a battle. All the other times the army of decay receded but this time they had overpowered the ancient and feared army of decay.

"They're gone!" Stella shouted with sheer joy as she literally jumped up and down. "They're totally gone!"

"For how long?" Flora asked as she desperately tried to catch her breathe.

"We don't know when they will return," Faragonda said as she approached the Winx Club. "But please get some rest or something to eat, they will attack again,"

No matter how dire the circumstances would become, nobody could steal away the feeling in the quad that night. It was joy and pride and although it was mixed with a bit of worry, it was a good night.

While everyone was in the quad a victory against the Army of Decay, Musa had gone up to her room very quickly to get on the phone and tell her very worried best friend at home that he could rest easy. It had been a few days and even through there was still more to come, she didn't need a royal ship landing in the midst of all this mayhem. But when she sat on her bed she felt the unbelievable need to lay down and the second her head hit her pillow, the overwhelming pull of sleep took her and she quickly began dreaming. Dreaming about the things she used to dream about in the beginning of the year.

At least when the next battle came, she would be well rested.

* * *

_1) my best friend described a girl at a party with those exact words_

_So yeah, I really didn't think that Musa would take it well when she saw Riven again. She's got about the same issue with letting herself be vulnerable as Riven so when he came back I thought that she would be really angry with him, especially since she like him and he was not exactly a gentlemen. Also, if I were one of Riven's old friends, I probably would not have forgiven him as quickly, but hey that's just me. _

_Enough of my ranting, I hope you enjoyed it! _

_Two chapters left!!!_

_xoxo,_

_princessm_


	25. The Great Witch Invasion

_Happy Holidays!_

**The Great Witch Invasion**

Ali was one of the most interesting people Musa had ever met. She was not a nice person in any sense yet she seemed to get along with most people. And while Muysa had her close group of friends, the Winx Club, she and Ali had become quite close over the past year. Ali was, as she put it, the bitch that Musa is too scared to be, which was fine by Musa since she did fine Ali to be useful when she was feeling vengeful. One thing that Musa could never quite figure out was how she managed too keep herself so composed in such stressful situations.

In the past week or so the school had been attacked multiple times, all communication between the realm and other realms was on and off and most people were beginning to worry and get a bit edgy. Ali, on the other hand, treated it like it was just another day at the school for fairies and Musa couldn't tell if it was a front or not since Ali really didn't seem tense at all. "I have the biggest craving for some chocolate ice cream," the fairy in question said as she and Musa began to walk back to Musa's room from the back woods of Alfea. The two were talking to some of the heroes about what was going and that was when Musa really began to notice the eeriness of Ali's chronic calmness.

"Well I'm sure there aren't any lines over at crimson berry (**1**), if you wanna run over to Magix and pick some up," Musa joked

"Don't joke I would totally go," Ali stated and Musa laughed. "But I think maybe you should go with the hottie at twelve o clock," Ali suggested pulling Musa's attention back in front of her. Musa's heart suddently began to race when she saw Riven approaching the two and she wasn't sure if he had seen them until he looked up and met her gaze. The two looked at each other for a second before quickly looking away. But they were too close to each other to not say hello. And just to make things more awkward, Ali began to walk towards the staircase to leave Musa alone with Riven.

"Wait, Ali don't," Musa said quickly, almost afraid of being in the same proximity of Riven alone.

"And stop what is sure to be a deep and meaningful conversation," Ali said sarcastically as she walked away with a malicious smile. "Never,"

"Hey Riven," Musa said with an awkward wave as they met in the hallway right before the stairwell.

"Uhh….hey Musa," He said.

"Okay well I should go check on Flora's pumpkin," Musa said mentally slapping herself for not thinking of another excuse to get out of the situation.

"Yeah okay," Riven said as the two began to walk away from each other, at full speed, in opposite directions.

Musa walked back into her dorm room with every intention of finding Ali and slapping her for not staying with her when she heard Flora attempting to bring Mirta back. Musa let go of her plot of revenge on Ali and decided to help Flora since she had just used that excuse.

"Poor Mirta," Flora sighed after another failed spell. She had read through all of her different books on herbal remedies and spell and she couldn't find a single solution to help Mirta become normal again. She had even begun to study dark magic spells as well in some attempt to try to understand what it was exactly that Icy had done. "I feel like I've done everything I can,"

"You might as well toss it in Flo," Musa said as she put her hand on Flora's shoulder in an attempt to support her. She looked to the pumpkin sitting on the center of the table that had been there for almost the entire spring semester. There was very little hope left for Mirta and after everything Flora had done that had come out in failure, it was almost as if she were in denial.

"You don't mean give up do you?"

"Look if any of us can break Icy's spell its you," Musa explained trying to save Flora from stressing about this for any longer. "And obviously it's not happening, just let it go. It's better for everyone, right Stel," Musa said to Stella who had been out on the balcony for almost an hour now and for that entire hour she hadn't said a word, which had to be come type of record for her. Even she was beginning to get a little depressed, the constant atmosphere of doom that was outside their window was enough to make even the cheeriest person begin to feel bad. (**2**) And Bloom still hadn't returned, making worry gain a firm grip on her mind.

"It's sad but it's totally true," Stella agreed a couple seconds later as she walked into the room from the balcony. "There's no hope for Mirta as a human," (**3**)

"I think it's time to find her a nice sunny pumpkin patch," Musa offered trying to be helpful in some way but after she said it she realized just how mean it sounded. It's not that Musa was getting sick of Mirta being there, but she really felt that Flora needed to face the truth.

"At least that way she'll be among friends,"

"Stop talking like that," Flora commanded with her arms crossed and a defiant look in her eye. She was not going to give up and Musa should have known that before she had made the comment about the pumpkin patch.

"Flora will never give up on her," Techna pointed out

"That's right I won't," Flora said

"Then use all you're Winx in one last try," Musa told her completely overlooking the fact that they were going to need all the help they could get to defeat the Army of Decay and the witches.

Flora did just that and began to focus all her energy on her friend entombed in the pumpkin shell. As Musa and the other girls watched, a bright light filled the room and all of them looked away. "Where'd she go?" Musa asked after the light dissipated from the room. She looked to the table where Mirta had been for so long and noticed that she had disappeared leaving a bit of fairy dust in her path.

"I'm right here," A voice said from behind then and in astonishment, Musa looked back and saw that Flora had finally freed Mirta. The two jumped around in excitement as Stella walked over to the balcony; clearly she couldn't get her mind to rest for a second.

"Not to upstage your grande entrance or anything Mirta, but there is a tall, dark bruting hunk of a guy pacing around under our balcony," Stella said as she looked off the balcony. "Why don't you go see what's troubling him Musa,"

Musa looked at Stella in confusion for a few seconds before she noticed the smug smirk playing on her face. "Is it Riven?" Techna asked before Musa had a chance to.

"Mr. Moopy himself,"

Musa had never been good at hiding her feelings for Riven from her friends and even when they didn't bring him up everyone knew that she had a thing for him. But the fact that either of them refused to acknowledge the fact that they liked each other made it nearly impossible for their friends to successfully bring them together. But Musa had always been a bit shy when it came to guys, she was never able to make the first move, but she did tend to have the flirting game mastered. Years with Daniel helped her pick up on the art. "Yeah what do I care," Musa said refusing to admit her feelings, although it was in vian since everyone knew that she wanted to see him. "But, I could go for a walk you know catch a little breeze,"

* * *

Musa left the room and walked through the hallway, her stomach was doing back flips and she had the sudden urge to turn around and walk away. Her meetings with Riven were sufficiently awkward already, but she couldn't help but feel amazing after them. She had never really felt like this before and she had no idea what it was about him that made her feel his way, but she loved the feeling.

There were a million ways Musa could have opened the conversation, she could have been cute and said something with some wit, but instead her mind went blank and she could only managed to spit out three coherently words in the most awkward way possible. "Oh…hey, Riven," She said as she if she wasn't expecting Riven to be there even though he was the reason she came down from her room. But Musa felt a lot better about what she had just said after she heard what Riven had to say.

"Oh, um, listen, they don't really teach this in Heroics class but, IgottasayIreallylikeyou,so,bye!" Riven blurt out and then promptly walked away before giving Musa the opportunity to even digest what he had just said. He walked away without looking at her which was good considering she had trying her hardest to stifle a laugh. She had no idea why she found it to be so funny considering she had been dieing to hear that sentiment come out of his mouth since she met him. Everything with their relationship was awkward or uncomfortable but that didn't change the fact that they liked each other,_ a lot_.

Musa quickly turned around and walked back into the hallway leading to the staircase and let out a giddy laugh and jumped up and down a bit before gaining some composure. Riven had just told her that he liked her and for a second she let herself revel in how good it felt. Of coarse they were miles away from being anything more than what they were, whatever that was, but this was a step, a big one. After a few minutes alone in the hallway, Musa walked up to her room with an uncontainable smile painted across her face.

"I assume it well," Stella said at the door as if she were waiting for Musa to come back through the door, which she probably was.

"I assume you were listening," Musa pointed out. As she took a seat on the couch and turned on her laptop so that she wouldn't' have to keep looking at Stella while she explained what happened, not that Stella didn't already know.

"Not that there was much to listen to," Stella said. "But the smile on your face tells me heard exactly what you wanted to hear,"

Musa looked up at Stella as her computer loaded and continued to smile. "I did," Musa said happily just keeping the giddy giggle out of the conversation. She figured she had denied it enough and nobody was falling for it anymore so it was time that she was honest about her feelings for once instead of pretending Riven didn't mean anything to her.

"I have no idea what you see in that boy," Stella said as she plopped down on the couch next to Musa as the other girls left the room to show Mirta around the campus. Musa logged into her email account and continued to listen to Stella.

"Let's not get into that Stella," Musa advised knowing it would only end in an argument. Stella was the one who had been hoping Musa and Daniel could make it work, she loved the idea of Musa being with a prince who – as she said – fit perfectly with her.

"Fine," Stella agreed. "But whenever he's around I can't seem to do anything to slap that goofy smile off your face. So I guess as long as you're happy I'll keep quiet,"

"I do not have a goofy smile on my face," Musa defended as she looked up at Stella. "I'm just happy that Mirta's back,"

"Oh yeah that's it," Stella said sarcastically. "This coming from the girl who wanted to put her in the pumpkin patch, but it's nice to see you happy,"

"Thank you," Musa said and then stared intently at her computer screen for a few minutes not saying a word, but the 'goofy' smile that Stella claimed Musa had on her face grew even larger as she read her email. "Oh. My. God."

"What's up?" Stella asked as she looked up from her nails and began to read the email that had Musa so enthralled. "What's Wizardapalooza, wait is it that big concert thing?"

"It's only the greatest concert thing ever," Musa exclaimed. Wizardapalooza was a huge weeklong concert even that you had to be invited to if you wanted to see the show. It took place in various venues all around the universe and for a month it was a nonstop party with the universe's hottest musicians and an event Musa and her friends attended every year, but that wasn't what made this so special.

"So you were invited?" Stella asked as she continued to read on not understanding why this was such a big deal. Musa _was_ a the princess of the Harmonic Nebula, so it made sense that she was invited to exclusive events like this. But as the Solarian princess read on she began to understand why this was so important to her. "You're going to perform!"

"I can't believe this!" Musa said happily. You had to be super talented to perform among the ranks of the universe's most talented musicians and she couldn't believe she was just asked to do so. "This is going to be so amazing!" Musa said instantly deciding to take the offer that was presented to her.

"Congrats," Stella said. "Looks like you're gonna be busy this summer,"

"It's only a month long actually," Musa pointed out. "But considering everything that happens during that month, I'll probably need a month of detox to get ready for school,"

"Musa gone wild,"

"Hardly," Musa defended.

"Okay…" "

But it gets to be pretty crazy with everyone we usually end up taking care of a wasted Daniel, but it's still an awesome event. I'm so excited." Musa said before pulling out her phone and getting up to walk over to her room. "And speaking of them, I have to call Daniel and tell him!"

"I think I'm gonna find Techna and check on everything, I'll see you outside?" Stella asked as she began to walk out of the room.

* * *

Musa nodded as she dialed and walked into her room, waiting for Daniel to pick up him phone. She hadn't really spoken to anyone from back home since she got back from Sparx, there was way too much going on for that. But this was something she couldn't she couldn't wait till she got home to tell them. "Pick up, pick up," Musa said as she paced in her room desperately hoping Daniel would pick up his phone. "Come on…"

"Hello…" Daniel answered; sleep weighing heavily into his voice asked. Daniel was one of those people that could sleep for 14 hours and still feel tired. (**4**)

"Guess what!" Musa asked excitedly hoping he would wake up and start showing some enthusiasm.

"What?" He asked calmly through a yawn.

"Wizardapalooza this summer -,"

"Which we go to every summer…"

"Let me finish!" Musa commanded before continuing on with her exciting news. "I was asked to be a performer this year for the tour! I get to sing and everything!"

"Whoa no way," Daniel said in surprise. When they went to the exclusive tours they were usually spectators that enjoyed the show and they didn't do much else but enjoy themselves. Now Musa was going to be a part of the show, it was amazing. He wasn't surprised that Musa was asked to perform since he knew exactly how talented she was, but she was probably going to be the youngest entertainer there. It hardly mattered though, he and all of their friends would be there as well.

"Way, isn't this amazing?"

"Yeah, but what about your dad," Daniel asked. There were a few people that knew the details of Musa's family life and Daniel happened to be one of them. And he knew that her father wouldn't be happy if Musa were gallivanting all summer with musicians much less performing herself. Usually they got away with going to the tour because they would say they were staying at one of their beach houses or something and its not like their parents had the time to check up on them. But now, since Musa as a performer there was a good chance that she would be featured in pictures, basically there was a better chance that she would get caught.

"I was thinking maybe we could just restrict press access during the performances," Musa said. "and other pictures are not gonna make it all the way back to my dad,"

"Sounds good to me," Daniel said now sounding like he was fully awake now. "So when do you get back, I feel like I haven't seen you in such a long time,"

"It's been like a week,"

"Yeah that last visit doesn't count, I saw you for a whole hour," Daniel said.

"I'll be back soon," Musa said not really sure when she would be back. The news with Wizardapalooza was a great distraction from what was going on, but Musa had to remember that there was still a lot going on around here. "Promise,"

"How soon?" Daniel continued sounding like an impatient child.

"Soon," Musa insisted realizing that she would probably have to end the call before letting up too many secrets to Daniel, she was trying her best to keep this whole witch situation under wraps and talking to him much longer would lead to an interrogation and there wasn't much she could keep from him, even over the phone he could tell when she was lying. "Look I have to go I just wanted to tell you the good news,"

"Hmm…sounds like you're avoiding the subject,"

"How about you get back to sleep and I'll call you later," Musa offered.

"Okay, I'll talk to you later," Daniel said and the two hung up. With a contented sigh Musa closed her phone and shoved it back into her pocket and began on her way to the quad to meet her friends. Today was going a lot better than she had hoped, first their was Riven then their was Mirta and now she was going to have one of the greatest summers of her life. This was the best day ever, excluding the fact that the Trix were ready to attack and possibly take over the universe.

* * *

Musa walked back down through the corridor and down the staircase and into the quad. She looked around and saw her friends talking to Mirta over at the other end of the quad. Musa walked over to them as Flora asked whether Mirta had any info on the witches since she is a witch and she was frequently a pawn in their games.

"They're on a whole other level, they're totally dedicated to destruction," Mirta said, but after fighting the witches all year, it was pretty obvious. They would stop at nothing to get what they wanted and they really didn't care who they hurt, or killed, to make it happen.

"Maybe a manicure pedicure combo would chill them out," Stella joked even though it didn't go over too well. She tended to make a lot of jokes when she was in uncomfortable situations or situations that were too serious.

"Why are you turning this into a joke?" Techna scolded.

"I'm just trying to lighten the mood,"

"We'll be fine," Flora encouraged. "And so will Bloom, we just have to have hope and stay positive,"

"I think Flora is right, morale is very important in the battle," Techna added. "We have a better chance at winning if we all stick together and believe in ourselves,"

"At this point, I would love to just get this battle started," Musa complained as the girls took a seat by knut; who was sitting on the steps in front of the quad with a familiar look of impatience and anxiety.

"I'm with Musa," Stella added. Musa nodded and looked up and saw Brandon, Timmy and Riven walking towards them.

"What's the haps chaps," Musa said as Riven, Timmy and Brandon walked up to the group. She began to feel butterflies in her stomach when she looked at him and he only looked at her for a second before addressing the whole group.

"Why don't you tell us," Riven asked, occasionally stealing a glance at the musical princess.

"No one knows anything. This waiting is slowly driving me crazy," Timmy complained, Musa was no fan of waiting and she knew just how annoying it was to wait, especially for something you didn't want. What they needed was some news or a distraction.

"The sky is so threatening." Flora said as she gazed up at the gloomy sky. It was getting worse by the second, the natural light that used to peak through the clouds was almost all gone and now the entire sky was covered with a mucky black haze.

"Techna said that there's an eighty percent chance of – " Stella began before being cut off by a large flash of lightning and loud clap of thunder. Everyone flinched in surprise, even though they had been hearing it all day and night. "Ahh! Lightning striking every five minutes!"

The group took a little laugh at Stella's expense when one of the Red Fountain juniors, Jason, shouted to Faragonda and Griffin. "Word from the dark forest. The nymphs have come with news!"

"Finally. Some info," Riven said as everyone got on their feet and walked up to Griffin and Faragonda. They walked up to the head of Alfea and listened as the water nymphs gave.

"Welcome to Alfea," Ms. Faragonda greeted warmly. "What news do you bring us?"

"It isn't good," One of the nymphs began in a hesitant tone. She looked at the head mistress and the students and the worry in her small face was enough to translate into worry on everyone else's face. The news wasn't going to be the least bit good.

"The army is taking the invisible road," Another nymph began

"They'll be here soon."

"And I'm afraid that's not all Ms. Faragonda." The nymph added.

"Icy, Darcy and Stormy are leading the charge,"

"We thought you should know,"

"Go rest up inside," Ms. Faragonda told them, they would be safe there and she then turned to address the students all around her. Ms. Faragonda tried her best to hide her worry and show confidence as she addressed the group. "This is it! Everybody to your positions! The final battle is coming to Alfea and Alfea will be ready,"

Musa and the girls exchanged looks; it was time that they got this over with once and for all. They split up since they were all given different starting positions, even through they usually ended up fighting alongside each other. Ms. Faragonda had set it up so that all of their strengths would be put to use, but they really did work best as a team. Musa began to walk towards her designated area, all of the others girls had done the same as well, when she felt someone brush past her.

Riven, who stopped and looked at her for only a second, was walking to his post next to Brandon but as he walked by he stopped for maybe a second and looked the princess in the eye. "Be careful," Was all he said before he walked away to prepare for the battle. Musa nodded as he turned to walk away and then happily scurried over to her position. While it wasn't much, it was clear that he cared for her and that was what she had been hoping for. He hadn't really said much, but in the little that he did say she knew how he felt, not that she didn't already know after this morning.

She had spent most of the year being jealous of Darcy, though she would never admit it, and angry at Riven. And in an attempt to soothe her own ego she had made an image of Riven in her head that made him so completely undesirable that she had no idea why she had ever liked him in the first place. But she was beginning to remember why, he was rude, grumpy and just plain mean at time, but she knew that there was so much underneath that, a part of him that he hid from everyone, a lot like she did. And that was what intrigued her so much about him, she didn't know much but she really wanted to know more.

Musa walked to her spot and her daydreaming was stopped abruptly by a ghastly screech that filled the air around her. It was time. She looked out to the horizon and saw much of the army of decay taking the skies. "Looks like it's time," Ali said as she walked right next to Musa, the dance team was still kept on the ground for hand to hand combat since they were very quick on feet and could maneuver on a dime.

"Yup, here they come," Musa said.

"The witches are leading the attack," Ali stated even though everyone already knew that. "You can get a shot at Darcy, I mean if you're not too mature for a little revenge,"

"Oh I'm sure she'll get what's coming to her," Musa said confidently as the army began to close in on Alfea's gates, she knew full well that Darcy was on e of the most powerful and brutal witches in the universe, but she also knew that the Trix were up against three schools. And if Musa could get a cheap shot at the witch, she'd take it. It might be a dirty tactic, but it wasn't like the Trix ever played fair. Musa had never felt so charged and ready to go before, but right now all she wanted to do was begin the fight.

She looked out onto the horizon and watched as the army grew closer and closer. The army of Decay led by the Trix was closing in on the school and the final battle was only minutes away.

* * *

_1. Pink Berry is one of my all time favorite ice cream places - crimson berry is the pinkberry of Magix_

_2. Rainy and gloomy days have been shown to make people depressed because melatonin, the hormone inthe body that controls our day and night cycles and plays a part in mood, is released more when there is sunsshine. that is why people tend to be more tired and depressed on rainy days. Melatonin levels are also responsible for jet lag. _

_3. last time i checked, human cant fly or send out powerful attacks from thier palms. I don't think the beings in Magix qualify as homo sapiens_

_4. I'm one of those people. _

_one more chapter to go!_

xoxo,  
princessm


	26. Fire and Ice

_Final chapter! hooray!_

**Fire and Ice **

Musa stood in her position anxiously awaiting the Army of Decay, but as they got closer and closer she found herself wandering closer to her friends as they all did the same and before she knew it they were all side by side. Musa didn't really think much of it since they were a great team and she felt a lot better when she knew they were there if something happened to her. She was immediately pulled from her thoughts when a gruff voice filled the silent air.

"Everybody pay attention!" Cordatorta shouted as he called everyone to attention. "Ms. Faragonda is now your Commander and Chief! Understood?!"

"Fairies, witches and heroes!" Ms. Faragonda addressed the entire campus of students once again, this time she had a lot more fire in her voice. "As we face our final battle I want you to find all of your courage and all of your strength, and then take it and turn all its power on Icy Darcy and Stormy! If we have any hope of survival those three must be defeated!"

A few minutes' later monsters had arrived, but instead of attacking they stood in line with the three towering thrones made completely of rot. The three witches sat atop each of their thrones with smug smiles as if they had already won. Musa cringed at the thought of having to sit on a tower of decaying matter and wondered how they thought that sitting on decaying carcasses was cool or the least bit intimidating. It was simply gross.

"Oh my god, who told them that a throne made of rot was posh?" Stella said with disgust. "Could you imagine what would happen if they redecorated this place,"

"Let's not think about that," Musa insisted she really would not like to think about the school that she was coming to love run by the three people she hated most. She stared up at the army that filled the skies and the grounds in front of her all of them awaiting the next command.

"Attack," Icy said rather nonchalantly as she lifted her hand from her cheek and waved it as if she were bored, which only served to anger the students who know more than ever wanted to get rid of the witches for good.

With her command the entire fleet of stingrays began their attack while the land monsters began to march onto the Alfea campus. But just as the girls were ready to attack and defend the school, Faragonda and Griffin combined their powers to put up a huge shield in order to protect the school, but the girls knew it was only temporary.

"Well that helps," Techna stated. "But how long do you think it will hold?"

"You can't stop me I'm the new head mistress of Alfea," Stormy said with a cackle. Musa had seen Flora send out an attack, but it turned to dust before it even reached Stormy, and the witch took the opportunity to show everyone just how weak she thought the fairies were, and how strong she knew she was. She then sent out her first attack and with a strong bolt of lightning, she single-handedly crumbled the shied that the two head mistresses had put up. "Make room fairies! We're moving in!"

"I think that answers your question," Stella said to Techna as the girls flew up into the air and waited for the next order that came only seconds later.

"Everybody attack now," Faragonda ordered. Just as she shouted the command to the students, the entire army of decay came crashing down upon Alfea. All the stingrays began to flood the skies over Alfea while the land monsters stormed what was left of the Front gate.

Musa flew straight back down to the ground when she found it nearly impossible to see in the sky let alone fly. It was too heavily crowded with the stingrays and if she wanted a decent shot at the monsters in the sky than she needed a better vantage point. She got to the ground and began firing at the stingrays while the girls around her fought off the towering beasts that were coming by land. Musa was too distracted in the fighting to hear what Icy was saying, not the she cared since it was probably just some taunt that she wanted to use to discouraged them, but the response caught her attention.

"That's not the dragonfire," A familiar voice yelled. Musa looked up to the sky immediately and saw the missing member of the Winx Club. "This is the Dragonfire," Bloom flew confidently in the sky, fully equipped with the powers that she was so sure that she lost.

"She's okay!" Stella squealed with happiness.

"Sorry it took me so long to get here guys," Bloom added as she looked down to her friends, completely ignoring the witches that were trying to lay siege on the building. Musa and the rest of the Winx Club flew up to the newly re-empowered fairy, ignoring the threats that the witches were shouting at them.

"You're here now!" Flora assured happily and while the five had their conversation in the sky. The fighting almost seemed to stop while they were up there but just as Musa heard random blurbs of what the witches were saying, she and the rest of the Winx Club managed to hear Icy instructing her sisters on their next course of action.

"You won't need more than your normal powers to defeat these four," Icy said and Musa looked over to see the witches giving over their share of the Dragonfire over to Icy and she immediately sent out a blizzard like attack over to the five girls, but Bloom immediately countered with a shield that melted the ice before it could reach the fairies.

In the midst of all of this Flora sent out a fairy dust like attack that was like a powered that stunned and confused the enemy and it seemed to hit the mark perfectly when the witches became a bit disoriented. "Whose pathetic now?" She snapped at Stormy for the comment that she had made earlier when she was breaking down the shield that Ms. Faragonda had put up.

Musa looked over to Bloom who gave her a nod and began to fly after Icy and the two began to battle on their own, leaving Darcy and Stormy for the four of them. Finally Musa would have the chance to finally get a swing at Darcy.

But before the musical princess could even begin to think about how she could get the one witch she had been dieing to get her revenge on, the remaining two Trix sisters had combined their powers and sent out an attack. "Electric Twister," They shouted after combining their powers and Musa began to bring up a shield and fly away from it, but luckily for her Techna had them all covered.

"World Wide Web!" Techna shouted as she put up a net like shield around the four that managed to not only protect them but it also made the entire funnel dissipates as well. It was almost laughable how easily they were defeating the witched when they didn't have their extra power.

"Nice one Tech," Musa said happily as she watched Darcy yell out in frustration. This was definitely a benefit of the witches heading up the charge.

"Sun blast," Stella said as she fired an attack, taking advantages of the witches while they were recharging. Flora also used the golden opportunity to get a few of her own shots in as well. Then, while Stella and Flora's attacks took effect, it was Musa's turn as she conjured up some intense sound waves, although it was one of her less powerful attacks, she knew it would distract that witches, which was exactly what she wanted. She needed to a little time to focus and release a more powerful attack.

Musa was ready fire her next attack when Stormy got shifted her focus and destroyed her chance at conjuring the attack and then she also managed to it with a lightning bolt. "We'll take Stormy," Stella said as Musa flew out of the way of Stormy's attack. "You can get a few punches in with Darcy," Stella offered

Musa nodded and quickly summoned an orb of magic and threw it at Darcy, knowing it would provoke her. "Do you really want to mess with me?" Darcy asked in a tone mocking innocence, "Let me finish what I started in Magix,"

With that Darcy sent out a dark wave that knock Musa right out of the sky, luckily she managed to get control over her body before she hit the ground and shot back up into the air to face her enemy quickly. "You're going to have to do better than that,"

"Well how about I kill you," Darcy offered as she threw more attacks at Musa, none of which hit Musa since she was a lot more agile than Darcy was.

"Now I don't see how you're going to kill me when you can't even touch me," Musa said in the same innocent tone that Darcy had used to mock them earlier in the battle. Just as she said it she finally got her sonic blast to hit it's mark and Darcy flew straight into one of the trees below. Musa followed the path that Darcy had taken on her fall downward, only to be stopped half way as the witch didn't need too much time to recover, but when she got back in front of Musa there were obvious signs of damage all over her body.

Musa smiled at her handiwork and flew back over to the girls since they seemed to need help with Stormy. Luckily, by the time she had flown back to the group, they had managed to get Stormy off her back.

"Give it up we're gonna bury you right next to Bloom," Darcy taunted even after the beating she just took.

"I don't think so," Techna said as she full on tackled Stormy right out of the sky.

Meanwhile Musa managed to use her agility in the air to out maneuver Darcy after Darcy fired an attack. Musa flew right behind her and sent out one of her more powerful attacks that seemed to hit the mark perfectly.

"I believe this is the part where we relive them of the burden of being irreparable dorks," Darcy said with a smug smile to Stormy.

"You do realize we're kicking your ass?" Stella shouted. These witches were way deep in denial, since the battle began Musa and her girls were taking no prisoners and it was like they didn't believe that it was actually happening. But there was still very real danger in the situation, how could there not be, these were the witches that had no sensor when it came to morals and humanity. They were willing to do anything to get what they wanted.

"I'll go crazy on them," Stormy offered to her sister.

"That shouldn't be too hard," Musa muttered quietly as she prepared her next attack and retreated a bit to keep away from the attack and stop it from sucking her in. Stormy then began to start spinning into a cyclone that strongly resembled the attack that she had conjured earlier.

Musa began to fly backward a lot faster when she felt the intensity of the winds that were now were not only causing havoc in the sky but as Musa looked down to the campus, everyone was frantically running out of it's path as they continued to fight the monsters on the land. "That funnel had an F5 wind force," Techna said frantically as they flew away from it the best they could, but when Musa looked back she saw that one of her friends had not managed to get out of dodge of the cyclone.

"Flora's stuck in it!" Stella shrieked as the remaining members of the Winx Club.

Musa and the girls looked at each other for a second and then they began what was something like power convergence. They and within seconds of using all their powers as one, they managed to not only pull Flora out of the cyclone, but they managed to turn the cyclone around so that it went back after Darcy and Storm.

"We got'em!" Stella cheered happily as she watched the two witches fall right out of the sky with no sign of them recovering before they hit the ground. Musa smiled with the slight hope that they would hit the ground and never get up, but the more humane part of her didn't think that it was right of her to wish death upon someone.

Musa continued to watch the witches fall and then all of a sudden an attack came from the two headmistresses that encased the witches in a dungeon that didn't allow magic to pass through from the inside. "Their monsters are disappearing!" Musa noted as she and the girls flew to the ground and collapsed the second their feet hit the earth. It had been weeks of anxiety and days for non stop fighting and constant worry. Now they were close to being finished with it. A smile spread across the exhausted fairies face as she felt her heart rate slowly decrease as she caught her breath.

With every passing second there were less and less monsters both in the sky and on land and as Musa gazed up at the sky from her place on the ground, the sun finally began to peek through the clouds and the gloomy haze was beginning to lift. For the first time in a long time, she saw the sun. "The entire army is gone!" Flora said as the last of the monsters began to dissipate into the air.

"I think we just won," Stella said happily as she looked to the other girls with a smile so happy that she could hardly contain herself.

"Yes we did!" Musa grinned and tilted her head back with relief and let out a laugh of pure joy as she let the bright sun warm her face. While this wasn't the way she thought she would be spending the last weeks of her semester, she wouldn't trade this moment for anything.

"Hi," A voice said behind Musa as she sat on the ground. Musa looked up to see Riven standing above her with a smirk painted across his face. Musa had missed that look so badly. With her heart beginning to race again –this time it had nothing to do with the fact that she was just fighting with the Trix sisters – Musa smiled as Riven outstretched his hand "Need a hand?"

"Yo," Musa said happily as she took his hand and allowed him to help her up, trying not to look too excited. While Musa was feeling better, she was still feeling a bit of recoil from all of the fighting. Musa stumbled a bit as she stood, but luckily Riven put his hand on her waist in an attempt to steady her. Musa couldn't have planned that better. They didn't say anything after that; instead they stood there for a few seconds simply looking at each other. And for the first time it didn't feel awkward at all and Musa did take notice that their fingers were still woven.

Their hands remained that way for a few more minutes until Bloom flew down from the sky with Icy laying unconscious in her arms. She then placed Icy on the floor and greeted her friends. Bloom was far to humane to have actually killed Icy and as she looked back as Bloom approached them, Icy was put in the exact chamber that her sisters were probably now waking up in. "Bloom," Musa said happily as her hand slide out of Riven's and she walked over to her friend, not seeing Riven's smile fall slightly when she left his side.

"I'm so happy you're okay Bloom," Stella said.

"It's so good to see you guys," Bloom said with obvious fatigue in her voice, everyone was tired but Musa was sure that once the high of victory sunk in, that she would get a second wind.

Musa talked to Bloom for a second before realizing that this victory meant that she was going to be going home soon. As far as her father knew, the semester was over in a few days, but Musa wasn't going anywhere until the whole 'witch taking over' thing was dealt with. And now she could finally call her friends and tell them that she was going to be back. The princess then turned to go inside, missing the small kiss that Bloom and Sky shared right as she turned her back.

* * *

Just as the azure eyed fairy got to the outside corridor to the staircase, she felt slender arms quickly wrap around her and give her a hug from behind. For a second she figured it was Bloom or Flora, since it was behavior she might expect from then, rather she turned to find, much to her surprise, that it was Ali who had embraced her. "Hey!" She said excitedly. "I can't believe it's finally over!"

"Yeah," Musa said a bit weirded out still. Ali was not the type to just randomly huge people.

"I saw you kicking Darcy's butt, nice job" Ali said as she began to walk backward towards the quad, Musa had honestly never seen her so happy off of victory. "I'm gonna go see James!"

"Oh…kay…" Musa said rather slowly still having a hard time believing that she was the Ali that Musa had known all year from the dance team. Musa turned and began to walk towards her room. Once in her room she walked to her cell phone and immediately called the one person she knew would be happiest with her news that she was coming home soon. Unfortunately the prince of Crescendo didn't pick up any of the several calls that she had made.

"Damn," Musa cursed. She was dying to share her news with someone and now that everything was over it was probably safe to tell Daniel what had really had really been going on at Alfea. She would be careful to leave out some details that she knew would only be harmful and she would have to downplay the whole thing, but it was better than making up some lie that he would be able to see through anyway.

Musa, defeated in her attempt to get in touch with her best friend, decided to go back down to the quad and join her friends in what was sure to be a celebration. She did however send a text to him hoping it would prompt him to call her back. _I hope you miss me cause guess who's coming home in two days? _Musa then closed her phone and began to walk back down to quad.

"Hey Musa it looks like we're going to have a prom after all," Bloom said with Sky trailing not too far behind her.

"Really?" Musa asked confused. As far as she knew it, big parties like that took awhile to plan and organize, not to mention get ready for.

"Yeah, Faragonda and Saladin figured it wouldn't be fair to make us have classes," Sky said as he put one arm around Bloom's waist, an act that made the two of them blush. Musa raised and eyebrow ready to make a comment but Bloom began before Musa had a chance.

"It's very impromptu," Bloom insisted. "We're gonna go help with the tables and stuff Techna, Stella and Ali are working on the lights over by the garden if you wanna help,"

"I'll get right on that," Musa said with a grin as she walked over to the gardens that had managed to survive the battles that Alfea had endured. They were still alive and sparkling with vitality even when some parts of Alfea looked as if they would never come back. But the major pieces of rubble and debris had been moved out of the quad and there were already plans being made fire the reconstruction of Alfea and Red Fountain.

Musa found her friends hanging lights on small lines that were originally used to light up the garden during the Kai Fly sorority's annual ball. "Need some help?" Musa asked as she walked over and grabbed some lights. There were a lot of the small twinkling lights and from what she was looking at already, the school was going to look great.

"That would be great," Ali said as she handed Musa small clamps for hooking on the lights. "Whitney and Tara already started in the main entrance way and we can go help them in the quaff after we finish here,"

"Sounds good," Musa said as she flew up and began hanging the lights. She and the girls continued for twenty minutes and before they knew it the entire garden was lite up.

"This looks great!" Stella said. "Now onto the quad,"

She and the girls proceeded to the quad and Musa saw Knut sweeping up on the way. The ogre that had originally given them so much trouble was now a huge help when it came to reconstruction the school and from what she heard he was now going to be a part of Alfea permanently. "Nice job Knut," Musa said when she and Techna flew by. She looked down to the ogre who was helping to sweep and clean up the school after the attacks. He had also been the one to do a lot of the heavy lifting, but the boys helped with that too. "Thanks for helping us out. We're gonna go set up the light in the quad. See ya later, kay?"

As Musa finished helping the other girls set up the lights she looked over her shoulder and saw all the witches lining up in their cloaks and preparing to leave the campus. "Looks like the witches won't be joining us for out little make shift prom," Stella said, while she was not a huge fan of a casual prom that didn't involve ball gowns and limousines, she was warming to the idea of having one last hoorah before going home for the summer.

"Good," Ali spat. No matter how hard Musa tried to rid of Ali's prejudices before, it never seemed to work. She hoped that maybe over time something would change.

"Be nice," Musa chastised as she continued to hang some lights on the tree. She looked over her shoulder and saw the last couple of witches go into the portal that went back to Cloud Tower.

"I hear the witches are going to Do Gooders Boot Camp," Techna said as she finished with the last light and the Winx Club gathered to watch the Trix sisters, who were now put under a spell that stripped them of their power, but only temporarily.

"That should be a nice change of pace," Musa joked as she watch with delight as Darcy got pushed through the portal, not before looking back at the five and giving them an awful sneer. Musa simply laughed it off since she knew that they had won and the sisters had lost.

"I'm just happy we never have to see them again," Bloom said.

"Bye" Stella shouted over to the witches. It had to be so embarrassing that they were being carted off to a pyschward in front of everyone that had defeated them.

"I am so not done with you," Icy said she was the last one to go into the portal, other than her handlers and they had to expect one of the witches to say something. It hardly mattered, it was over and they had won.

"Well now that that's over," Stella said once the portal shut. "How about we go get ready!"

* * *

Musa and the rest of the Winx Club emerged from their rooms a little while later in their party clothes ready to have fun, but as they stepped outside they heard Griselda call. "Young ladies, please gather in the quad immediately," Griselda ordered as everyone began to walk back outside after getting ready. The girls followed their orders and walked to the center of the quad where Ms. Faragonda was waiting for them. "Ms. Faragonda has an announcement for you,"

"This has been a unique year for you here, capped by a day of extraordinary courage," She began with her normal look of grace and composure. There was something to be said about a person that was that composed and self aware even in the most stressful sitations. "You certainly behaved like true Alfea girls, you did well. In fact you did so well I feel it is unnecessary to have final exams this year, you're all passing with honors,"

Suddenly the girls all cheered when they learned they wouldn't have finals, although Musa wasn't very surprised considering they spend half of finals week fighting the witches and it would be unfair to make the students that just saved the school to site down for exams. "Alright, now that that's settled, lets get ready, now it's time to party!" Ms. Faragonda yelled happy as she threw her arms up in the air. The girls followed suit and cheered as well.

Later that night, Musa carried a cup of punch as she walked through the crowded quad where everyone was dancing. She stopped when she heard someone calling her from behind.

"Musa! Who knew you had something relatively slutty in you're closet?" Ali nearly yelled as she walked up to Musa from behind. It was a little true, Musa wasn't used to wearing such a short skirt or a strapless top for that matter, but she figured it was a party and there was no harm in changing things up every now and again. Musa smiled at her friend that looked almost too jolly when she realized she was avidly drinking something.

"Are you tipsy," Musa asked as her eyes narrowed and she looked at Ali more closely. She was only a couple more cups of whatever she was drinking away from being completely smashed.

"It's a party," Ali said as she pour a clear substance that Musa was sure from it's scent wasn't water, into her cup. "Celebrate, I plan to,"

Musa laughed as she watched Ali stumble a bit and then begin to dance with James, she would have warned her friend to be careful since there were so many teachers around, but they were too busy talking with each other and by the way they were acting Musa had a hunch as to where Ali may have gotten her booze, probably without permission of coarse.

"Hey Musa, over here," Timmy called she waved and walked over to her table where everyone was sitting. She took an empty seat between Sky and Timmy and took a sip of whatever was in her glass, it wasn't bad.

Just as Musa was about to join in on the conservation she heard her phone go off in her pocket, which was pretty impressive since the music was going pretty loud. _You know I do. Finally, it's really not the same without you. I'll call you later tonight. _Musa smiled at the text Daniel left as she closed her phone and looked back to her friends. Musa was beyond excited to get home and see everyone that she hadn't seen for such a long time, especially Daniel. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't deny the attachment she felt towards him. But that didn't mean she was happy to leave Magix.

"You guys, we're going to be sophomores next year," Flora told her fellow members of the Winx Club, obviously not addressing the guys since they would be juniors. "And you know what they say; sophomore year is even more thrilling and more exciting than freshman year." When she had first arrived here she had a strong desire to go back home where everything was familiar and safe. But now, she felt sad to leave Magix, even if it were only for the summer. Musa looked up at the friends she had made over the past ten months and even though she hadn't pictured her freshman year at Alfea to happen the way it did, she was very happy with the way it turned out.

"To next year!" Sky proposed as he raised his glass. Musa yelled along with everyone else and raised her glass right after Sky raised his. She smiled and proceeded to take a sip of her drink. She understood why her mother loved it here so much, there was no way to describe how she felt here, but it felt like magic.

* * *

_I had orginally planned to finish this over the summer (which would be the winter for those in the southern hemishpere) but I got pretty distracted. Then i wanted to finish by the end of 2008, and technically I did. It's just I was busy on new years eve and i had a lot of sobering up to do on the 1st day of 2009. So it was finished in 2008...._

_anyway, i hope you enjoyed the story. I did love writing it, this was the biggest story i have every written. Wow! _

_For now I have to focus on college, but I'll be back in the summer! (Hopefully!)_

xoxo,  
princessm


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